^fty  or  PRf/v^ 


^OtOG 


ICAL  SEV^' 


BX  7233  .B4  1873X 
The  sermons  of  Henry  Ward  Beech 
er  in  Plymouth 


I. 
The  Hereafter. 


INVOCATION. 

Lift  upon  us,  O  God,  the  li^ht  of  thy  countenance.  Put  us  not  far  from 
thee.  Drive  us  not  as  by  a  storm  to  a  covert,  but  bring  us  forth  as  by  the 
sun  after  a  storm  all  that  has  life  is  brought  forth  with  gladness.  And  may 
we  have  refuge  in  thee,  above  care,  above  son'ow,  above  fear,  above  all  things 
which  tempt  and  draw  aside.  May  we  have  power  to  live  toward  thee  m 
Jesus  Christ.  And  so  may  we  find  our  home  and  our  heaven  begun.  Bless 
the  service,  this  morning,  of  song,  and  of  communion,  and  of  instruction. 
Bless  us  in  our  hours  of  meditation  and  of  research  this  day.  May  everything 
be  done  as  in  the  quiet  life  of  our  Father's  house.  And  so  at  last  bring  us 
there  with  joy  and  rejoicing.  We  ask  it  through  Christ  our  Redeemer. 
Amen. 
1. 


THE    SERMONS 


OF 


HENRY   WARD    BEECHER, 


IN 


Plymouth  Churchy  Brooklyn, 


FROM   VERBATIM   REPORTS   BY  T.   J.    ELLINWOOD. 


"PLYMOUTH   PULPIT," 


EIGHTH  SERIES; 


MARCH— SEPTEMBER,  1872. 


NEW   YORK: 

J.    B.    FORD    &    COMPANY. 

1873. 


.-^^ 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  In  the  year  1872,  by 

J.    B.    rORD    &    CO., 

In  the  OfSce  of  the  librarian  of  Congress,  Washington,  D.  0. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGB. 

I.  The  Hereafter  (1  Car.  xiii.  13)      ....        4 

Lesson  :  l  Cor.  xiii.   *Htmns  :  132, 124G,  1272. 

11.  The  Deceitfi-lxess  of  rticiiES  (Matt.  xiii.  22)     .      19 

Lesson  :  Dan.  iv.   Hymns  :  573,  COO. 

HI.  The  Realm  of  Restful^s^ess  (Ueb.  xi.  27)     .        .      37 

Lesson  :  Heb.  xi.  17-40.    Hymns  :  218, 607, 1251. 

IV.  IIow  TO  Learn  aijout  God  (Jcr.  ix.  23,  24)  .        .       55 

Preached  in  Steinway  Hall,  New  York. 

^     V.  The  Church  of  the  Fl'ture  (John  iv.  20-29)       .      75 

lesson  :  Luke XV.    Hymns:  128,877,  607. 

VI.  Our  Father, the  King:  Brotherhood, the  King- 
dom (Mutt.  vi.  9,  10) 95 

Lesson  :  Matt.  v.  1-17.    Hymns  :  212,  705, 505. 

VII.  God's  Will  is  Good  Will  (Phil.  iv.  4-7)       .        .    113 

Les.'-:on  :  Psalm  cxlv.    Hymns  :  199,  638, 617 

VIII.  The  Conflicts  of  Life  (Eph.  vi.  10-18)       .        .     129 

Lesson  :  Heb.  xii.  i-U.   Hymns  :  GG8,  CC5, 725. 

IX.  The  Unity  of  Men  (lleb.  xii.  22-24)     .        .        .149 

Lesson  :  l  Cor.  i.  18-31    Hymns  :  3G4, 531,  , 

X.  Apostolic  Christianity  (2  Put.  i.  2-11)         .        .     1G9 

Lesson  :  1  Pet,  i,  2-16.   Hymns  :  286, 055, 1251. 

}t      XL  Signs  of  the  Times  (Mutt.  xvi.  2,  3)  .  .        .     189 

Lesson  :  Acts  xix.  23-41.    Hy-MNS  :  003,  705, 1022. 

XIL  The  Battle  of  Benevolence  (Matt.  v.  11,  12,  IC)    209 

Lesson  :  John  x'iil.  1-17.   Hymns  :  1344,  GCO,  1181. 

XIII.  Bearing  One  Another's  Burdens   (Ivom.  xv.  1; 

Gal.  vi.  2,  3) ■     .         .         .     231 

Lesson  :  Rom.  xiv.   Hymns  :  40, 658, 716. 

XIV.  The  Indwelling  of  Christ  (Col.  i.  27)         .        .251 

Lesson  :  Col.  i.   Hymns  :  200,447,463. 

XV.  'J^hougtits  of  Death  (John  ix,  4)    .        .        .        .209 

Lesson  :  Psalm  xci.   Hymns  :  1321, 021, 1257. 
♦PLYMorxn  Collection. 


IV      •  COXTENTS. 

Fagd 
XVL  TnE  Religious  Uses  of  Music  (Epb.  v.  19)         .    287 

Lesson  :  Psalm  ciii.   Hymns  :  104,  EOT,  632. 

XVII.  Peaceable  Living  (Rom.  xii.  18)    .        .        .        .    307 

Lesson:  Bom.  xii.    *Hymns  :  660,  784,  704. 

XVIII.  The  Laav  of  Libeety  (Giil.  v.  1,  18)        .        .        .    329 

Lesson  :  Matt .  xi.   Htmns  :  551, 600, 704. 

XIX.  What  IS  the  Profit  of  Godliness  ?  (1  Tim.  iv.  8)     349 

Lesson  :  Psalm  xlii.    Hymns  :  OOp,  725. 

XX.  The  PiELIGiox  of  Hope  (Eom.  viii.  24)  .        .        .     365 

Lesson:  Rom.  viii.  9-39.    HYMNS:  78,  e04. 

XXI.  SpiraTUAL  Fruit-Culture  (John  iv.  15)         .        .    383 

Lesson :  Jolin iv.  3-27.   Hymns:  180, 07J,  819. 

XXII.  The    Aims    axd    Methods    of    Christian   Life. 

(Acts  iii.  10,  20) 403 

Lesson  :  Eph.  iv.  1-16.    hymns  :  31,  818,  1257. 

{pXXIIL  The  Spirit  of  God  (John  iii.  8)      .        .        .        .419 

Lesson  :  Jolin  iii.  1-12.   Hymns  :  218, 268. 474. 

XXIV.  Spiritual  Hunger  (Matt.  v.  G)       .        .        .        .    433 

Lesson  :  Matt.  v.    Hymns  :  162, 905,  907. 

XXV.  Trustworthiness  (Psahiis  xii.  1)     .        .        .        .    451 

lesson  :  Psalm  xii.    HYMNS :  905,  847,  889. 

0  XXVI.  The  Significance  and  Effect  of  Christ's  Birth 

(Luke  ii.  11) 467 

Lesson  :  Luke  ii.   Hymns  :  215, 249, 247. 

*  Plymouth  Collectioh. 


PRinCETOIT 


THE  HEREAFTER. 


THSOLOGIC:"L,;V 


*•  And  no-w  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three  ;  but  the  greatest  of 
these  is  love."— I.  Cob.  XIII.,  13. 


It  must  be  conceded,  I  think,  that  Paul  stood  second  to  none  of 
all  the  inspired  teachers, in  the  range  of  knowledge  which  he  pos- 
sessed ;  and  there  were  more  topics  that  came  under  his  view  than 
was  the  case  with  the  others.  He  has  left  more  instruction,  and  in- 
struction on  more  sides  of  thought  and  feeling,  than  either  Peter  or 
John — certainly  more  than  James  and  the  others.  Yet  it  is  very  re- 
markable, especially  when  you  consider  the  teachings  of  Paul — a 
man  as  confident  as  he  was,  positive,  dogmatic;  a  man  of  intense 
firmness  and  self-consciousness  ;  a  man  with  all  the  elements 
which  go  to  make  a  good  professor  of  theology  in  any  modern 
chair — it  is  astonishing,  when  you  consider  his  teachings,  how 
little  he  thought  he  knew.  How  positive  he  was  of  that  which 
he  did  say  !  and  yet,  what  a  record  he  has  left  in  respect  to  not 
knowing !  It  is  the  impression  of  many,  that  Christianity  has  de- 
veloped such  a  range  of  truth  that  about  every  question  which  can 
be  asked,  may,  by  somebody,  be  answered.  Because  Christ  has 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,  it  is  supposed  that  by  all 
people  who  have  studied  enough,  or  prayed  enough,  or  thought 
enough,  there  may  be  found  some  light  to  be  thrown  on  almost 
every  question  that  the  heart  ever  wants  to  ask  in  regard  to  a  man's 
condition  here,  and  substantially  in  regard  to  his  condition  here- 
after. But  you  will  be  surprised,  if  you  go  through  the  New  Testa- 
ment, to  see  how  little  specific  teaching  there  is  in  regard  to  the 
great  hereafter.  You  will  observe  that,  in  the  main,  the  instruction 
of  the  New  Testament  in  respect  to  the  last  things  is  generic.  I 
shall  be  better  understood  in  that  term  generic,  when  I  shall  have 
finished  my  exposition  of  this  morning. 

In  this  chapter  the  apostle  was  setting  over  against  the  conflicts, 
the  ambitions,  the  desires  of  men  for  the  gift  of  tongues,  miracles, 

StTNBAY  MonroNG.  March  10, 1872.    Lesson  :  I  Cob.  YTTT.    Hymns,  (Plymoutli  Col- 
lection) :  Kos.  ISa,  121C,  UTi. 


2  THE  HERTIaFTEE. 

prophecies,  and  what  not,  the  fact  that  spiritual  gifts — those  which 
are  within  the  reach  of  every  one's  experience-^were  more  desirable 
than  these  special  and  ministerial  gifts.  In  the  course  of  that  dis- 
cussion, which  I  have  read  in  your  hearing  this  morning,  he  magni- 
fies and  glorifies  the  value  and  authority  of  love.  He  says,  in  respect 
to  it, 

"  Love  never  faileth." 

It  is  not  meant  that  when  one  has  once  possessed  love,  he  can  never 
lose  it.  That  is  not  the  question.  It  is  a  question  of  the  general  dura- 
tion of  great  gifts  and  developments.  It  is  as  if  the  apostle  had  said, 
"  There  are  many  things  in  this  world  which  are  good,  but  which 
are  only  for  a  single  age,  or  for  one  nation.  They  are  local ;  they 
are  transient ;  they  are  related  to  a  certain  stage  of  development  in 
the  human  family.  But  love  never  fails.  That  is  not  local  nor 
transient.  It  is  everlasting.  It  inheres  in  the  eternal  nature  of 
things.  Prophecies — they  answer  their  purposes ;  but  they  are  ripe 
before  the  summer  is  over,  and  they  drop.  Tongues — they  are  not 
to  be  continued.  They  shall  cease.  Knowledge — spiritual  discern- 
ment— that  insight  which  was  early  given,  at  least  to  a  part  of  the 
Christian  Church — that  is  also  relative.  It  passes  away."  Then  he 
goes  on  to  say, 

*'  For  we  know  in  part,  and  we  prophesy  [teach]  in  part." 
There  is  not  an  atom  of  the  genuine  spirit  of  dogmatic  theology 
in  this.  Men  who  have  rounded  up  the  whole  system  of  belief  from 
the  very  beginning  of  things  clear  on  down  to  the  present  time, 
dividing  it  into  chapters  and  sections,  and  caused  it,  as  they  say, 
by  scientific  processes,  to  cohere,  and  clamped  the  parts  all  together 
— no  one  of  these  men  rises  up  from  his  chair,  and  says,  "  We  only 
know  a  little  here  and  there  of  the  great  moral  realm.  We  know 
things  fragmentarily.  We  only  know  in  part."  So  said  Paul ;  but 
then,  Paul  would  have  had  hard  times  in  many  modern  churches  ! 

♦'  We  know  in  part,  and  we  prophesy  in  part.    But  when  that  which  is 
perfect  is  come,  then  that  which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away." 

His  eye  was  looking  forward.  He  looked  beyond  the  scene,  not 
only  of  that  age,  but  of  all  time.  He  seemed  to  be  lifted  above  the 
career  of  humanity  on  this  globe,  and  to  have  an  ideal  conception 
of  a  perfected  manhood  in  the  other  life.  It  is  as  if  he  had  said, 
"  When  that  which  is  filled  up,  swelled  [for  perfected  means  filled 
up] — when  that  which  has  grown  to  its  full  size,  and  taken  its  color 
and  flavor  under  the  sun — when  that  which  is  perfect,  is  come,  then 
all  these  transitory,  local,  limited,  partial  things,  will  drop  away.  As 
fall  the  early  leaves,  that  have  brought  the  plant  to  a  better  state  and 
a  higher  form,  so  drop  away  these  early  experiences." 


TEE  HEBEAFTEB.  3 

He  then  explains  this  by  a  figure  and  an  illustration.  The  figure 
■we  will  take  first  : 

"  Now  we  see  througk  a  glass,  darkly  ;  but  then  face  to  face." 
In  other  words,  We  see  through  a  window  dimly ^  indistinctly. 
Some  have  supposed  that  a  mirror  was  meant.  Commentators  have 
undertaken  to  show  that  it  was  a  speculum,  or  a  well-polished  steel 
mirror ;  and  that  people  only  seemed  to  look  through  it.  I  prefer 
to  suppose  that  it  was  a  window  in  which  the  glass,  if  glass  was 
used  at  all,  was  extremely  imperfect.  It  may  have  been  horn  scraped 
very  thin,  and  giving  a  most  smoky  and  indistinct  view  of  all  that 
was  outside  of  it.  Such  a  use  was  made  of  horn  for  dwellings  in 
ancient  times.  And  as  one  was  sitting,  and  looking  out  through 
this  semi-transparent  substance  upon  the  landscape  before  him,  he 
could  have  but  an  indistinct  idea  of  it.  He  lost  its  color  and  its 
eharp  specialities.  And  the  apostle,  as  it  were,  says,  "  Now,  in  look- 
ing at  the  whole  of  human  life,  at  all  the  developments  of  moral 
qualities,  and  the  whole  kingdom  of  God,  as  it  swells  out  before  us, 
with  these  mortal  eyes  and  experiences,  we  can  no  more  discern  ex- 
actly what  the  fullness  of  it  is,  than  one  sitting  at  a  windoAv  can  see 
clearly  everything  that  is  beyond  it." 

We  see  through  a  glass  dimly,  indistinctly  ;  but  in  that  great 
future  to  which  we  are  going,  where  humanity  shall  attain  its  full 
proportion  and  excellence,  how  shall  we  know  ?  What  will  be  the 
condition  then  ?  Why,  only  this  :  that  the  perfectness  of  knowledge 
which  God  has  when  he  thinks,  is  going  to  be  ours.  Then  we  shall 
rise  to  such  a  condition  that  we  shall  know  even  as  we  are  known. 
As  He  that  made  us,  and  understands  us  thoroughly,  knows,  so 
shall  we  know.  Now  it  is  all  haze,  with  here  and  there  a  single 
point  jutting  out  before  us;  but  by  and  by  every  part  shall  be  per- 
fect and  distinct. 

In  order  still  more  clearly  to  explain  it,  he  brings  in  an  illustta- 
,  kion  which  comes  home  to  our  own  personal  experience — namely, 
the  distinction  between  what  we  know  as  men,  and  what  we  knew 
as  children.  We  see  that  there  were  bits  and  beginnings  of  know! 
edge  in  our  childhood  in  respect  to  things  which  are  transparent  to 
us  now.  AVe  remember  how,  for  certain  reasons  which  we  could  not 
understand,  our  father  or  mother  was  led  to  do  or  forbear  certain 
things  in  reference  to  satisfying  our  curiosity.  We  remember  that 
when  we  went  to  them  with  questions,  they  were  often  put  back 
upon  us  with  some  feeble  explanation,  or  some  faint  analogy,  or 
Svith  the  answer,  "When  you  are  older  you  will  understand  it  a 
great  deal  better  than  I  can  explain  it  to  you  now." 

I  look  back  and  see  the  faint  beginnings  of  these  things  in  my 


4  TEE  HEBEAFTEB, 

early  childhood.     Comparing  the  fragments  of  knowledge  which  I 

had  then  with  what  I  have  reached  now  by  maturity  of  faculty  and 

added  experience,  I  find  that  they  were  but  the  merest  sketches, 

scarcely  initials,  of  the  whole  name.    And  the  apostle  says : 

"  When  I  WRfS  a  child,  I  spake  as  a  child,  I  understood  as  a  child,  I  thought 
as  a  child ;  but  when  I  became  a  man,  I  put  away  childish  things." 

He  said,  substantially,  "  I  put  away  all  these  imperfect  concep- 
tions in  favor  of  others.  I  rose  to  a  clear  view  of  things  as  they  are, 
instead  of  being  limited  to  mere  shadowy  views  of  things. 

The  application  is  :  In  this  complete  state,  when  we  attempt  to 
look  forward  to  things  after  death,  and  in  the  ulterior  development 
of  things,  in  the  other  life,  our  knowledge  will  be  as  transcendently 
greater  than  the  best  of  us  have  here  now,  as  the  knowledge  of  man- 
hood is  better  than  the  conceptions  which  we  remember  to  have  had 
when  we  were  little  children.  In  other  words,  now,  at  our  best, 
after  gathering  up  all  the  light  which  there  is  in  Scripture,  and 
after  reasoning  upon  it  as  best  we  can,  we  can  still  say  to  ourselves 
without  any  special  modesty,  "  We  only  know  about  the  after-life, 
about  the  other  state,  as  the  child  knows  about  life  and  manhood, 
while  it  is  yet  a  little  child."  We  know  something  in  general,  but 
very  little  in  particular. 

After  this  reasoning  (recurring  again  to  the  words,  "  Love  never 
faileth,"  with  which  he  began  this  run  of  thought),  the  Apostle 
says,  "  Now,  although  we  put  away  so  much  mystery  and  dim 
knowledge ;  although  in  respect  to  the  whole  after-career  there  is 
so  much  that  we  cannot  compass  nor  at  all  understand,  and  so 
much  that  we  misunderstand,  and  so  much  that  we  understand  in 
specks  or  in  spots,  yet,  after  all,  there  is  something  that  we  do  know- 
positively,  and  can  understand ;  that  is,  that  in  the  progress  and  de- 
velopment of  ourselves  hereafter,  this  is  the  line  along  which 
humanity  is  going  to  develop. 

•'  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three." 

There  is  the  luminous  path  along  which  humanity  is  to  move 
after  death,  and  through  the  eternal  cycles. 

What,  then,  is  faith  ?  That  word  is  used  unfortunately.  It  is 
employed  in  a  generic  sense,  as  well  as  in  many  specific  senses. 
Faith,  according  to  the  definition  in  Hebrews,  is  "  the  substance 
of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen."  That 
whole  range  of  knowledge  which  a  man  can  see,  or  hear,  or  handle — all 
scientific  material  knowledge — lies  below  the  sphere  of  faith.  Above 
that  are  what  we  call  moral  intuitions  and  affectional  intuitions. 
That  is  to  say,  we  think  of  ten  thousand  relations  and  things  which 
have  no  external  exponent  in  them.    We  think  of  things  which  aro 


THE  REBEAFTEB.  6 

not  seen.  In  other  words,  the  higher  faculties  of  man — ^his  superior 
reason,  his  moral  sense,  all  those  truths  which  are  deduced  from 
his  experiences,  or  from  processes  founded  upon  them — are  things 
unseen;  that  is,  super-sensuous.  We  have  a  whole  range  of  sen- 
suous truth  which  we  discern  by  the  five  senses  of  the  body. 
"We  have  the  lower  range,  and  the  lower  part  of  that  range,  which 
we  discern  thus.  But,  also,  we  are  quite  familiar  with  what  is  meant 
by  friendship,  and  honor,  and  fidelity,  and  disinterestedness.  These 
are  qualities;  but  they  are  qualities  which  are  invisible.  We  see 
what  actions  they  lead  to ;  but  the  things  themselves  we  do  not  see. 

As  the  mind  is  developed,  it  becomes  competent  to  form  larger 
and  larger  conceptions  of  things  which  exist  only  to  the  thought — 
of  moral  afiections  and  intuitions.  And  this  power,  being  generic, 
is  faith.  It  is  that  action  of  the  mind  which  takes  in  things  that 
the  senses  do  not  take  in — the  truths  that  lie  above  them. 

Now,  as  there  is  an  infinite  sphere  of  such  things,  so  faith  will 
have  a  sphere  of  special  adaptations.  There  was,  as  recorded  in 
Hebrews,  a  faith  that  worked  by  fear,  which  moved  Noah  to  build 
the  ark ;  there  was  a  faith  that  worked  by  conscience,  which  led 
Abraham  to  sacrifice  his  son ;  and  there  is  a  faith  which  works  by 
love.  There  are  special  applications  of  faith.  But  the  generic  idea 
of  faith,  is,  that  it  is  that  power  which  dis~cems  relations  and  con- 
ceives of  truths  which  have  no  physical  exponents.  It  is  that  power 
by  which  we  take  cognizance  of  things  which  are  discernible  only 
by  the  higher  nature. 

So,  then,  reducing  it  somewhat  to  a  philosophical  form,  or  bring- 
ing it  within  the  circuit  of  modern  habits  of  thought,  we  should  say 
that  the  nature  of  man  is  to  be  developed  in  the  other  life.  y 

"  Now  abideth  faith."  ^^^  '^ 

This  is  a  thing  which  will  last.  The  things  which  we  see  and 
handle  in  this  world  will  perish.  Our  bodies  we  shall  not  carry 
with  us  into  the  other  world.  There  is,  you  know,  a  belief  that 
these  outward  forms  will  rise  in  the  resurrection ;  but  I  should  like 
to  know  what  sort  of  physical  bodies  those  will  be  which  are  resur- 
rected without  flesh  and  blood — for  Paul  says,  as  plainly  as  words 
can  say, 

"  Flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God." 

There  is  to  be  a  body  raised  ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  a  physical  body. 
It  is  to  be  a  spiritual  body.  All  that  belongs  to  this  mortal  life ;  all 
tliat  in  this  mortal  life  has  depended  upon  physical  organization ; 
all  that  is  relative  to  this  mortal  condition ;  all  that  is  identified 
with  this  terraqueous  globe;  all  those  instincts  which  are  neces- 
sary only  for  the  body's  support — these  stop  with  the  grave.    The 


6  THE  EEBEAFTEE. 

body,  with  its  aclies,  with  its  passion  g,  with  its  appetites,  with  its 
digestive  functions,  with  its  distributive  apparatus,  with  those  pro- 
cesses which  proceed  from  organic  conditions,  whether  morbid  or 
wholesome — that  is  relative  to  time  and  matter,  and  ceases.  And 
all  that  which  belongs  to  our  mortal  state ;  that  is,  the  groupings 
together  of  men  in  families  such  as  exist  here,  the  groupings  of 
families  into  neighborhoods  and  States  such  as  exist  here,  also, 
under  certain  generic  laws,  and  the  grouping  of  neighborhoods  and 
States  into  nations — these  are  relative  to  this  mortal  condition. 
They  belong  to  the  physical.  They  take  their  shape  and  direction, 
of  necessity,  from  the  influences  which  spring  up  in  the  material 
world.  Men  are  largely  physical,  and  are  subject  to  the  laws  of 
evolvement.    And  all  this  ceases  at  death. 

There  is  no  evidence  of  the  existence  of  any  such  things  as  these 
beyond  this  life.  There  are  figures  of  cities,  and  mountains,  and 
gardens,  and  rivers,  and  what  not ;  but  they  are  illustrations 
borrowed  from  our  experience  here  to  throw  some  conception  into 
the  other  life.  We  can  carry  out  with  us  no  honors.  We  can  carry 
out  no  wealth.  We  can  carry  neither  statues  nor  pictures.  We 
cannot  carry  anything  that  is  physical.  All  things  which  belong  to 
this  world  are  partial,  local,  temporary,  and  they  stop  short  of  the 
other  life.  But  there  are  some  things  which  do  not  stop,  which  go 
on;  and  among  them  is /az«^.  That  goes  beyond  the  grave.  The 
higher  part  of  man's  nature,  the  superior  part  of  his  endowment, 
that  by  which  he  recognizes  higher  truths — that  goes  on. 

♦'  Now  abideth  faith,  hope." 

Hope  is  not  to  be  limited  to  our  very  partial  use  of  that  term. 
We  can  conceive  that  one  may  have  faith  in  the  sense  in  which 
I  have  defined  it,  and  yet  be  as  quiet  as  crystal  as  steel,  or  as  glass. 
One  having  faith  may  be  a  mere  discerning  spirit,  living  in  the 
higher  range  of  perception  and  conception  of  truth.  But  there  is 
to  be  an  animated  nature.  There  is  to  be  a  heart  of  courage,  of 
enterprise,  of  cheeer.  There  is  to  Iw  a  heart  that  has  action  in  it. 
There  is  to  be  something  beyond  mere  faith.  There  is  to  be  a  growing 
spirit.  There  is  to  be  such  a  thing  a3  aspiration.  There  is  to  be  a 
tendency  which  shall  make  a  man  go  upward.  And  that  is  hope — 
glorious  hope.  All  that  which  leads  a  man  to  go  on  and  up,  develop- 
ing toward  things  better  from  thing'*  worse  I  think  is  included  in 
this  term  hopo, 

"  Now  abideth  faith,  hope." 

Courageous,  cheerful,  animating  3»ope — that  is  to  go  on  forever. 

One  thing  more — love. 

"  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love." 


THE  HEBEAFTEB.  7 

All  that  impulse  by  wliich  the  music  of  gladness  is  rung  out 
in  created  things,  as  if  everything  was  a  liarp,  and  lived  only  to 
give  forth  from  itself  sweet  sounds  of  music  for  others  ;  all  that  part 
of  human  nature  which  is  purest  and  best,  which  moves  men  toward 
beneficences,  and  which  leads  them  to  give  and  give  forever,  using 
themselves  as  a  power  beneficently — that  abides. 

Says  the  apostle,  "  There  are  three  things  in  which  our  future 
manhood  is  going  to  stand.  It  is  not  going  to  be  what  it  is  esti- 
mated to  be  here  in  households  and  societies ;  it  is  going  to  be  de- 
veloped along  the  line  of  faith  and  hope  and  love.  In  the  direction 
of  these  three  great  elements  lies  your  manhood.  In  that  direction, 
lying  luminous  as  a  beam  of  light,  is  the  path  which  your  future 
manhood  is  to  take.     Says  the  apostle, 

"  Now  abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three ;  but  the  greatest  of  these 
[that  toward  which  the  others  both  tend]  is  love." 

If  now,  you  put  all  this  together,  you  will  see  that  the  chiefest 
of  the  apostles  throws  no  discouragement  upon  our  faith  of  the 
future  life.  He  does  not  take  away  from  us  the  blessedness  of  the 
vision  of  that  "  rest  which  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God."  But 
he  does  teach  us  that  all  the  minute  parts  of  it,  all  its  details,  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  our  knowledge.  "We  are  not  forbidden  to  lift 
our  eye  as  a  poet  or  painter  does,  and  limn  some  vision  of  the  here- 
after ;  we  have  that  permission  ;  but  so  far  as  authoritative  revela- 
tion is  concerned,  we  know  that  we  shall  not  transfer  the  relative 
state  of  things  out  of  this  life  into  the  other  ;  and  yet,  that  in  the 
other  life  we  shall  carry  all  our  higher  nature  to  an  infinite  degree 
of  brightness  and  afiiuence.  We  know,  still  further,  that  our  growth 
and  development  there  will  be  accompanied  with  ecstatic  joy. 

To  those,  then,  who  ask  what  are  to  be  the  conditions  in  the 
other  life  of  the  countless  myriads  of  men  who  have  been  going  out 
of  this  world  through  countless  ages,  all  the  answer  that  can  be 
given,  is :  We  know  not.  We  know  not  whether  from  other  sources 
than  this  earth  heaven  is  thronged  and  populated.  We  know  not 
where  heaven  is.  We  know  not  what  it  is.  It  has  not  been  revealed 
to  us.  There  is  not  a  word  from  the  beginning  of  the  Bible  to  the 
end  that  can  tell  you  definitely  where  heaven  is,  or  what  it  is.  It  is 
the  place  where  the  blessed  are.  Place  f  That  term  smacks  of 
physical  matter;  and  so  far.it  is  an  imperfect  term.  Where  the 
blessed  are,  is  heaven  ;  but  whether  it  is  near  or  far,  whether  it  is 
above  or  below,  we  know  not.  We  are  not  in  a  state  to  know.  What 
might  be  called  the  geographical  position  of  heaven  is  a  thing  which 
you  may  think  of  as  much  as  you  please,  but  which  no  man.  has  a 
right  to  put  his  demarcation  on,  with,  "  Thus  saith  the  LortU* 


8  TEE  EEEEAFTEB. 

You  may  say,  "  Thus  fondly  have  I  thought ;  thus  am  I  glad  to  be- 
lieve ;"  but  nothing  more  have  you  permission  to  say.  In  regard  tc 
how  the  vast  concourse  in  heaven  subsist,  the  Word  of  God  ia 

silent. 

"  We  know  in  part,  and  we  prophesy  in  part;  but  when  that  which  is  per- 
fect is  come,  then  that  which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away."  "  For  now  wa 
see  through  a  glass  darkly;  but  then  face  to  face:  now  I  know  in  part;  but 
then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 

We  know  not  whether  there  are  to  be  national  divisions,  com- 
munal groups,  or  anything  such  as  we  have  here.  The  mode 
of  future  being  transcends  anything  that  we  know.  We  are  as 
unable  to  understand  it  as  a  dog  is  to  understand  the  nature  of  a 
commonwealth.  Go,  try  to  explain  to  the  next  intelligent  creature 
below  you  all  that  you  know  of  virtue,  and  disinterestedness,  and 
love,  and  beauty.  Explain  a  joke  to  a  dog,  if  you  can.  Here  are 
beings  one  or  two  ranks  below  you  ;  and  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
to  explain  to  a  lower  state  of  faculty  the  qualities  of  a  higher  state, 
or  of  a  higher  class  of  faculties  superinduced  upon  a  lower  one.  We 
stand  in  the  line  of  the  same  analogy ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  explain 
to  us  the  evolvements  which  come  from  new  faculties,  or  from  old 
faculties  developed  to  such  a  degree  that  they  are  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  new  to  us. 

If  you  ask  why  God  did  not  reveal  more  to  us  respecting  the 

hereafter,  I  reply  by  asking.  Why  do  not  you  explain  something  of 

^  the  domesticities  of  life  to  a  dog  ?     He  could  not  understand  it  if 

you  did  ;  and  we  could  not  understand  that  which  relates  to  the 

future  if  God  should  explain  it  to  us. 

Then  comes  the  question,  What  is  to  be  the  condition  of  fami- 
lies ?  Then  comes  the  question  so  fond,  so  natural,  find  so  unre- 
bukable,  but  to  which  we  receive  no  answer.  Shall  I  know  my 
friends  in  the  heavenly  land  ? 

"Then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known."  "Where  I  am,  there  ye 
may  be  also." 

We  infer,  from  the  general  tenor  of  Christ's  instructions  by 
which  he  comforted  his  disciples,  and  from  the  sayings  of  some  of 
^  the  apostles,  that  we  shall  retain  our  identity  in  the  other  life ;  but 
there  is  no  explicit  knowledge  or  teaching  on  this  subject.  I  be- 
lieve we  shall  know  each  other  in  heaven ;  but  still,  think  of  it  a 
little.  How  do  we  know  each  other  now  ?  If  I  were  to  take  a  Bal- 
timore oriole,  and  show  him  to  you  as  he  sits  full  of  litheness  sing- 
ing on  a  bough  ;  and  if  you  were  to  bring  him  down  with  a  shot- 
gun, and  pluck  off  his  crimson  or  scarlet  feathers,  so  that  there 
was  nothing  left  but  the  bare  bird,  and  then  set  him  up,  would  I 


TUi:  HEBEAFTEB.  U 

know  him  ?     Would  you  know  him  ?    He  would  present  an  appear- 
ance Tiither  strange  and  homely  and  unsavory. 

I  would  not  convey  anything  in  the  way  of  ridicule,  nor  under- 
value anything ;  but  this  I  say :  that  when  we  come  to  live  together 
again,  much  that  we  call  our  personal  i"dentity  here  will  be  left  be- 
hind. We  have  adapted  ourselves  to  taking  people  as  they  are. 
One  has  been  so  irritable  that  you  have  been  in  the  habit  of  restrain- 
ing yourself  in  his  presence,  and  you  cannot  dissociate  from  him 
the  thought  of  his  irritableness.  Another  is  proud ;  and  you  have 
gone  around  the  feeling  of  pride  in  him  as  a  man  would  go  around 
the  edge  of  a  projecting  rock,  that  he  might  not  dash  himself  or  his 
horse  against  it.  Another  is  cautious.  Aiiother  is  headlong.  There 
are  all  temperaments  and  modes  of  development,  and  you  have  to 
atop  and  think  how  to  get  along  with  them.  You  make  an  average, 
and  take  them  for  what  they  are  to  you  here.  You  do  not  appre- 
ciate their  superior  excellences — those  traits  which  will  shine  bright- 
est there.  You  see  them  in  their  undeveloped  state.  Your  thought 
concerning  them  is,  "  How  shall  I  move  among  them  ?  You  take 
your  realization  of  their  present  imperfections,  and  transfer  that  to 
their  after-state.  But  if  all  that  is  sweet  and  beautiful  in  them 
should  be  harmonized  and  rounded  out  into  symmetry,  and  all  the 
passions  and  appetites  and  imperfections  and  clogs  which  belong  to 
them  here'  below  should  be  dropped  away,  how  would  you  know 
them?  What  would  be  left  of  some  men  to  know  them  by  if 
you  were  to  take  away  all  their  faults  ? 

While  we  believe  that  in  the  other  life  we  shall  know  each  other, 
we  are  in  danger  of  attempting  to  transfer  too  much  of  the  physical 
in  which  they  live  to  that  other  life,  and  of  supposing  that  we  shall 
see  our  friends  in  the  spirit-world  as  we  see  them  here.  If  you 
allow  for  the  drifting  of  an  undercurrent  in  making  your  calcula- 
tion, there  is  great  liberty  in  this  direction ;  but  it  is  a  liberty  which 
will  be  likely  to  bring  you  upon  shoals. 

I  believe  that  I  shall  know  my  friends,  and  that  they  will  know 
me,  in  heaven  ;  but  there  will  be  a  great  deal  of  difference  between 
the  knowing  in  this  life  and  the  knowing  in  that.  I  know  that  we 
shall  be  as  the  angels  of  God ;  I  know  that  we  shall  be  satisfied,  be- 
cause we  shall  be  like  Him';  I  know  that  we  shall  be  sons  of  God ; 
but  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  that  shall  be.  Nobody  can  now  tell 
what  that  means.  I  shall  know  you,  but  it  will  be  in  your  corona- 
tion robes.  It  will  be  when  you  have  on  your  crowns,  not  of  silver 
or  of  gold,  but  of  a  glorious,  heavenly,  divine  virtue.  It  will  be 
when  you  shall  bear  the  palm,  not  of  any  perishing  tree,  but  of  im- 
mortalities gathered  in  you.    It  will  be  when  you  are  priests  and 


10  THE  HEREAFTER. 

kings  in  the  other  life.  I  shall  look  with  glowing  eyes  on  your 
glittering  beauty  then.  I  shall  know  you,  and  you  shall  know  me, 
and  you  shall  be  mine,  and  I  shall  be  yours.  Oh,  brethren,  how  it 
will  transcend  anything  that  we  know  or  can  comprehend  now  ! 

Take  some  maiden.  She  has  seen  the  stranger  come  as  a  toiler 
and  ask  work  of  her  father ;  and  yet,  there  was  something  in  his 
brow  and  in  his  eye  that  kindled  respect.  He  worked  from  day  to 
day  on  wages ;  little  by  little  she  discovered  rare  virtues  and  excel- 
lences in  him ;  and  at  last  he  won  her  ingenuous  heart  and  pledge. 
Yet  it  was  hid  from  her  who  he  was,  until,  all  arrangements  having 
been  consummated,  she  was  carried  by  her  parents  to  a  distant  city. 
It  was  understood  that  there  was  to  be  the  coronation  of  a  king ; 
and  she  was  filled  with  wonder  as  to  what  that  could  mean.  And 
when  the  trumpets  blew,  and  the  curtains  were  thrown  aside,  issu- 
ing from  the  portals  of  a  palace  to  the  magnificent  platform,  came 
forth  he  who  was  to  be  crowned  ;  and  the  firing  of  artillery  and  the 
ringing  of  bells  made  music  through  all  the  heavens  above ;  and 
behold,  there  stood  before  her  dazzled  eyes  her  lover,  no  more  toiling 
and  sweating,  but  lifted  up  in  his  supreme  beauty,  and  grandly 
robed,  and  the  object  of  universal  admiration  and  cheering  respect, 
with  a  crown  upon  his  head  ! 

This  is  all  literal  and  plain  compared  with  what  it  will  be  when 
I  who  have  known  you  in  the  flesh,  brother  and  sister,  behold  you 
brought  out  in  your  Father's  kingdom,  and  God  shall  put  a  crown 
upon  your  head,  and  I  shall  say,  "  It  is  the  same  one  that  I  loved 
upon  earth." 
"  It  doth  uot  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be." 

But  we  ask,  "  Shall  I  find  in  heaven  all  those  who  have  become 
so  necessary  to  my  mortal  happiness  that  I  can  scarcely  do  without 
them  ?  Shall  I  find  my  children  there  ?"  I  shall  surely  find  mine 
there.  Will  they  know  me  ?  Do  they  know  me  now  ?  Do  their 
sweet  little  thoughts  hover  above  me,  and  distil  upon  my  head,  as 
dews  come  upon  fiowers  at  night  ?  Are  my  children  mine  ?  or,  are 
they  like  the  drops  of  a  brook,  which  flows  between  flowery  banks 
until  it  loses  itself  in  a  river,  which  pours  out  into  the  ocean  ?  Are 
they  only  drops  mingled  with  myriad  other  drops,  to  make  ujd  the 
universal  sea  ?  Are  my  children  immei'sed  and  lost  in  the  great 
ocean  of  human  existence  ?  Have  I  given  them  up  for  ever  ?  Is 
all  this  discipline,  all  this  lore  of  the  nursery,  all  this  sweet  life  upon 
the  knee,  all  this  night  and  day  in  my  bosom,  as  they  lay  sick  while 
they  were  babes — is  all  this  gone  forever  ?  Is  this,  too,  one  of  the 
illusions  of  life  ?  My  boys — are  they  mine  only  as  they  are  every- 
body's ?  Is  there  nothing  of  me  in  them  ?  Is  there  nothing  that 
my  heart  may  claim  in  them  ? 


TEE  EEBEAFTEB.  11 

I  believe  that  we  shall  know  our  children,  as  I  believe  that  they 
shall  know  us,  not  only  as  well  as  we  know  them,  but  far  better. 
"Will  they  not  have  grown  ?  Very  likely.  I  do  not  know.  I  can- 
not say.  One  thing  I  believe,  and  that  is,  that  faith,  hope,  and  love 
are  not  relative.  All  that  in  my  children  which  contained  the  seed 
of  promise ;  all  that  through  which  I  looked  confidently  toward  the 
future ;  all  that  which  made  them  my  companions  and  my  joy — 
that  shall  abide,  and  shall  be  mine.  They  will  not  appear  as  they 
did  in  their  mortal  bodies.  Their  bodies  will  then  be  rare  and  ex- 
quisite compared  with  those  which  they  wore  on  earth.  But  there 
will  be  lines  and  lineaments  by  which  I  shall  identify  them,  though 
they  will  be  without  the  clogs  and  hindrances  which  belong  to  this 
mortal  state.  • 

I  doubt  not  that  we  shall.find  our  children  there.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  heart  has  been  kindled  to  so  much  fear  and  suffering 
that  it  may  be  quenched  with  everlasting  forgetfulness. 

This  is  my  liberty.  It  is  not  God's  revelation.  It  is  my  neces- 
sity. And  I  am  not  rebuked  when  I  indulge  in  such  thoughts. 
My  heart  cries  out  to  those  who  have  loved  me  and  gone  to  the 
heavenly  land ;  and  when  I  cry  to  them,  I  hear  a  voice  answering, 
as  the  Spirit  and  the  Bride  are  represented  as  saying  "  Come  I"  At 
night,  by  day,  at  twilight^  in  joy  and  in  sorrow,  I  hear  the  voices  of 
loved  ones  saying,  "  Come !"  Over  all  troubles,  louder  than  the  noise 
of  winds  and  storms,  I  hear  the  voices  of  those  who  have  gone  be- 
fore me,  saying,  "  Heaven  is  real;  God  is  real;  love  is  eternal; 
come— from  out  of  winter,  from  out  of  trouble,  from  out  of  storms, 
from  out  of  the  sin-land,  come !"  There  sound  perpetually  from  the 
walls  and  battlements  of  the  celestial  city  voices  that  win  and  woo 
every  aching  heart,  saying,  "  Come,  come,  come!" 

And  yet,  if  you  go  into  the  minutiae,  into  the  specialities,  of 
those  things  which  a  mother's  heart,  or  a  father's  heart,  or  a  lover's 
heart,  or  a  friend's  heart  craves  to  know,  there  is  no  answer.  But 
you  are  left  to  your  own  liberty.  As  a  poet  is  left  to  imagine  what 
he  pleases,  and  as  an  artist  is  left  to  draw  what  he  pleases,  so  you 
may  imagine  and  draw  what  you  please;  only  the  results  at  which 
you  arrive  will  not  be  authoritative.  This,  however,  is  certain  :  that 
our  friends  are  not  lost.  This  is  certain :  that  they  are  not  less 
than  they  were  on  earth.  This  is  certain  :  that  they  are  more  joy- 
bearing  and  joy-producing  than  they  were  here.  This  is  certain : 
that  I  shall  be  satisfied. 

So,  Christian  friends,  not  to  draw  out  unduly  this  line  of  thought, 
nor  to  weary  you  with  it,  in  all  our  longings  for  the  heavenly  land, 
let  us  bear  in  mind  that,  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  most  rapt 


12  THB  EEBBAFTEB, 

and  inspired  of  all  the  teachers  of  the  New  Testament,  the  other  life 
differs  from  this,  not  by  the  wasting  away  of  things  with  which  we 
are  familiar  here,  and  which  we  are  wedded  to  here,  except  so  far  as 
they  are  relative  to  a  low  and  imperfect  state. 

"What  eagle  ever  went  sorrowing  after  its  shell  when  once  it  was 
born  ?  While  it  is  an  egg,  the  shell  is  its  protection,  and  in  the 
walls  of  that  little  globe  it  has  its  safety ;  but  when  once  it  has 
broken  the  shell,  and  come  out,  and  become  an  eagle  of  the  heaven, 
it  never  goes  sorrowing  back  to  the  nest  again,  though  when  it  was 
but  an  eaglet,  and  unfledged,  it  hugged  it  so. 

In  all  your  thoughts  of  this  life,  where  God  has  nested  us,  and 
where  we  are  fed  and  developed,  remember  that  the  things  which  are 
now  dear  to  you,  while  they  are  things  good  and  desirable,  are  many 
of  them  transient ;  but  that  part  of  your  nature  which  sorrow  is 
meant  to  develop,  that  part  which  love  is  ripening,  that  part  out  of 
which  comes  the  truest  joy,  that  part  which  leads  to  all  that  is  sub- 
lime in  character,  and  is  transcendent  and  divine,  and  allies  you  to 
God — remember  that  this  grows  apace,  and  waits  in  those  that  have 
gone  before.  How  beautiful  it  will  be  when  we  shall  find,  not  what 
we  have  lost,  but  that  which  has  been  saved  and  nurtured  for  us ! 

I  go,  in  the  autumn,  and  sow  my  seeds  through  my  garden — for 
many  of  them  must  be  autumn-sown ;  aivd  when  the  spring  comes, 
and  I  visit  my  grounds  again,  I  shall  find  not  what  I  sowed. 

I  threw  the  brown  black  seeds  into  the  dirt ;  there  stands  the 
glowing  spike  all  a-blossom.  I  sowed  to  the  flesh  :  I  shall  reap  of 
the  spirit.  I  gave  dust  to  dust.  God  wrapped  in  his  arms  my  child. 
He  tended  my  dear  ones.  He  loved  into  sweeter  beauty  my  friends. 
They  are  nobler  than  when  I  elected  them.  And  in  the  heavenly 
land  they  wait.  What  ?  How  looking  ?  In  what  occupations  ?  We 
know  not  precisely ;  but  this  we  know,  generally :  that  faith,  hope, 
love,  and  all  that  can  be  evolved  out  of  them  in  human  experience, 
are  forever  unchanged,  except  to  grow  brighter  and  brighter. 


TEE  EEBEAFTEB.  13 


PRAYEK  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  adore  thee,  our  Father.  Though  we  behold  but  thine  outward 
glory— the  trailing  of  thy  robe,  a3  it  were;  though  we  discern  but  little  of 
thy  countenance;  and  though  we  are  not  yet  Ufted  up  and  purified  so  that 
we  can  enter  in,  and  know  the  heart  of  God;  yet,  where  thou  dwellest,  there 
is  light.  We  look  toward  the  beams  and  the  glory  thereof,  and  rejoice  in 
that  which  we  do  know,  and  from  it  interpret  that  which  is  yet  to  be  re- 
vealed. We  rejoice  that  as  we  live  and  grow  toward  the  spirit,  we  are  pre- 
paring ourselves  for  that  higher  sphere  and  that  more  blessed  knowledge. 
Not  forever  shall  we  be  confined  below ;  not  forever  imprisoned  in  the  flesh, 
nor  tried  and  proved  and  tested  in  our  moral  natures,  and  in  all  the  exigen- 
cies of  human  life.  Tbou  hast  put  us  away  from  thee  that  thou  mightest 
bring  us  back  increased  and  purified.  Thou  hast  sent  us  thitherward  to 
school,  and  thou  art  waiting  to  bring  us  back  to  our  Father's  house,  educated 
into  the  knowledge  of  true  spiritual  living.  Grant  that  we  may  have  before- 
hand some  sense  of  that  rest  toward  which  we  are  hastening ;  that  we  may 
behold  life  not  merely  to  ask  for  its  pleasures,  to  participate  in  its  joys,  to 
reap  its  honors,  to  mourn  over  its  infelicities  and  shun  its  pains.  May  we  be 
quickened  by  it  in  our  inward  life,  knowing  whose  sons  we  are,  and  who 
is  waiting  for  us  in  the  heavenly  land.  May  we  accept  all  the  experiences 
of  this  mortal  sphere,  so  that  they  may  work  together  for  our  good,  cleansing 
us,  strengthening  us,  inspiring  whatever  is  good  in  us,  and  augmenting  it, 
both  in  quality  and  in  volume,  that  by  and  by  we  may  be  not  unworthy  to 
stand  in  thy  presence,  when  we  shall  have  been  cleansed,  purified,  and  pre- 
sented by  Jesus,  our  Elder  Brother,  before  Ihe  throne  of  the  Father.  Then, 
if,  O  Lord  our  God,  thou  shalt  say,  "  Worthy,  enter!"  what  will  have  been 
all  the  trouble  of  life?  What  will  have  been  its  disappointments,  its  sharp 
conflicts,  its  crosses,  the  baptism  of  blood  even,  if  by  suffering  we  imitate  the 
Captain  of  our  salvation,  who  through  sufferings  was  made  perfect?  Vouch- 
safe to  every  one  in  thy  presence  that  foresight  of  faith,  that  enthusiasm  and 
gladness,  that  joy  of  confident  belief,  by  which  he  may  enter  in  and  take 
beforehand  some  fruit  of  the  heavenly  land. 

If  there  be  any  in  thy  presence  who  are  bowed  down  with  trouble,  to- 
day, may  the  cloud  lift.  If  there  be  any  who  feel  that  they  have  been 
pressed  beyond  endurance,  reveal  to  them  that  inward  hidden  strength 
which  comes  from  God,  that  they  may  stand,  not  in  themselves,  but  by  the 
might  of  the  power  that  is  in  thee. 

We  pray  for  all  those  who  mourn  the  hidings  of  thy  countenance,  and 
for  all  those  who  are  surprised  by  sin,  and  who  mourn  and  grieve  over  their 
repeated  insubordinations — their  pride,  their  selfishness,  their  vanity,  their 
various  worldly  ways.  Will  the  Lord  grant  that  they  may  be  strengthened 
with  all  strength,  and  with  knowledge,  to  know  how  to  overcome  besetting 
sins,  and  how  to  build  up  into  symmetry  and  perfection  all  these  erring  parts 
of  their  nature. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  gracious  unto  any  that  are  in  bereavements, 
sorrowing  for  the  loss  of  those  who  have  been  dear  to  them.  Grant  that 
their  grief  may  not  weave  about  all  the  objects  of  their  thoughts  garments 
of  mourning.  May  they  discern,  as  did  those  of  old,  angels  clothed  in  white. 
And  grant  that  they  may  be  lifted  out  of  their  sorrows  by  the  cheer  of  the 
Holy  Spirit. 

If  there  be  those  who  are  in  the  midst  of  afflictions,  and  are  hindered 
from  coming  to  the  house  of  God,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  with  them,  and 
give  them  strength  of  body,  and  hope  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  If  there 
be  any  who  are  sick,  we  pray  that  they  maybe  gracioiisly  restored  to  health. 


14  TEE  HERE  AFTER. 

or  be  prepared  for  the  events  of  thy  providence.  And  may  It  be  alike  to 
them  whether  thou  shalt  with  thy  hand — the  pierced  hand  of  love — call  them 
to  thee,  or  lengthen  out  their  earthly  service.  May  the  Lord's  dealings  with 
them  seem  to  them  the  best  of  gifts. 

Remember,  we  pray  thee,  all  of  those  who  are  burdened  with  duty  and 
daily  care.  Especially  remember  those  to  whom  have  been  committed 
households,  and  who  stand  as  ministers  in  those  households,  bearing  the 
burdens  of  the  weak,  supplying  the  wants  of  the  needy,  and  attempting  to 
fulfill  the  law  of  Jesus  Christ.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  strengthen  their  go- 
ing. Grant  that  they  may  not  be  discouraged.  Even  where  they  wait  long 
for  the  fruit  of  the  seed  which  they  have  sown  in  tears,  may  they  still  have 
faith  to  wait,  and  to  believe  in  the  Lord. 

We  pray  that  all  the  young  in  our  congregation  may  grow  up  in  truth, 
honor,  purity,  and  integrity  of  purpose,  through  life.  We  pray  that 
they  may  serve  the  church  and  the  community  in  which  they  dwell  with 
more  signal  fidelity  than  those  who  have  gone  before  them. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  men  may  take  a  higher  thought  of  disinterested 
love  and  unselfish  devotion,  and  that  our  land  may  be  redeemed  from  all 
sordid  influences,  and  from  all  corruptions,  and  from  all  strivings  of  wicked 
men.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  purify  this  great  nation,  and  make  it  God- 
fearing. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  that  preach  to- 
day. Everywhere  remember  those  who  teach.  May  our  Sabbath-schools  and 
Bible-classes  come  up  in  remembrance  before  thee.  Bless  those  who  labor 
therein.  May  they  labor  in  faith,  rejoicing  in  sight  when  that  is  vouchsafed 
to  them;  and  may  they  still  labor  in  faith  when  sight  is  denied  them.  May 
they  have  faith  though  success  may  not  seem  to  attend  their  efforts.  May 
their  faith  never  fail.    May  they  never  be  weary  in  well-doing. 

Grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the  nations  of  the  earth  everywhere. 
May  those  who  are  in  darkness  receive  the  light  of  the  Gospel  in  Christ 
Jesus.  May  those  who  are  in  trouble  be  relieved  from  the  conflicts  of  the 
world.  May  violence  cease,  and  peace  reign  instead.  May  knowledge  drive 
away  superstition  and  ignorance. 

We  pray  that  the  great  race  may  come  up  in  remembrance  before  thee. 
May  they  grow  too  strong  to  be  oppressed.  May  they  stand,  at  last,  clothed 
in  their  rights,  able  to  govern  themselves,  and  be  governed  of  God,  so 
that  there  shall  be  no  more  bitterness,  no  more  wars  by  ambitious  rulers,  and 
so  that  the  whole  earth  may  sit  together,  rejoicing  in  love  and  harmony. 

Hear  us  in  these  our  petitions,  accept  our  thanksgiving,  pardon  all  otir 
sins,  receive  us  graciously,  and  redeem  us  finally  with  everlasting  salvation ; 
and  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  immortal.  Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  heavenly  Father,  wilt  thou  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the  word 
spoken.  May  it  cheer  and  comfort  us.  May  we  seek  out  of  this  stormy  land, 
the  land  of  the  unsetting  sun.  May  our  tlioughts  know  how  to  fly  through 
the  space  which  separates  between  life  and  death.  Here,  in  the  death-land 
we  begin  to  live  where,  living,  we  shall  be  as  thou  art,  O  loving  Father! 

Comfort  those  who  mourn.  Strengthen  those  who  are  weak,  ued  by 
trouble.  Draw  near  to  those  whose  hearts,  long  hungering,  are  unfed.  Be 
a  Father  yet  to  thy  children  who  are  lingering  here,  and  bring  us  all  safely, 
at  last,  to  that  eternal  house  not  made  with  hands. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.    Amen. 


II. 
The  Deceitfulness  of  Riches. 


INVOCATION. 

Bless  us,  our  Father,  uot  according  to  our  understanding  of  our  needs,  but 
according  to  the  greatness  of  thy  mercy  and  thj^  compassion.  Cleanse  our 
hearts  from  unbelief.  Grant  that  the  night  may  pass  from  our  eyes,  that  we 
may  become  the  childreu  of  light,  and  rejoice  in  the  nearness  of  our  souls  to 
thee,  and  in  the  participation  of  those  blessings  which  thou  art  wont  to  con- 
fer upon  those  who  love  thee.  May  we  be  able  to  emancipate  ourselves  from 
care.  May  we  be  able  to  retire  from  those  vexing  thoughts,  from  those 
doubts,  and  from  that  unbelief  which  so  often  hold  ua  from  thee  and  from 
ourselves.  May  the  services  of  the  sanctuary  be  greatly  to  our  edification, 
building  us  up  in  the  beUef  of  the  truth,  and  giving  us  stronger  desires  for 
holiness,  and  bringing  us  nearer  to  thee.  We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.  Amen. 
2. 


THE  DECEITFTJLNESS  OF  EICIES. 


And  the  deceitfulness  of  riches.— Matt.  XIII.,  22. 


This  is  a  part  of  the  parable  of  the  sowing  of  the  seed. 

*'  He  also  that  received  seed  among  the  thorns  is  he  that  heareth  the 
word ;  and  the  care  of  this  world,  and  the  deceitfulness  of  riches,  choke 
the  word,  and  he  becometh  unfruitful." 

In  other  parts  of  Scripture  we  have  descriptions  of  the  destruc- 
tive influence  of  riches.  But  while  they  are  elsewhere  called  canker, 
and  names  involving  corrosion  and  disease,  it  is  the  deceitfulness  of 
riches  that  is  here  meant — and  that,  too,  in  reference  to  the  growth 
in  us  of  the  truth — the  quickening  in  us  of  moral  sense.  It  chokes 
the  word,  and  it  becomes  unfruitful.  That  is,  as  seed  left  to  weeds 
(and  especially,  in  Palestine,  to  thorns  and  briers),  which  eagerly 
take  possession  of  land  that  is  not  tilled,  comes  up,  it  may  be,  but 
languishes,  and  never  comes  to  head  or  ripens  into  grain ;  so  men 
are  kept  from  developing  Christian  graces  or  Christian  manhood, 
not  so  much  by  riches  in  their  unavoidable  nature,  as  by  the  deceit- 
fulness which  attends  the  obtaining,  the  keeping,  and  the  using  of 
them. 

We  are  not  to  interpret  the  New  Testament  as  being  averse  to 
riches.  In  the  Old  Testament  wealth  was  distinctly  recognized  as  a 
divine  blessing.  It  was  the  reward  which  God  gave  to  a  life  of 
integrity  and  virtue.  Ample  fields,  vineyards,  olive-orchards, 
fruit-trees,  bringing  forth  abundantly — these  were  promised  to  those 
who  obeyed  God.  This  was  the  Oriental  form  of  wealth.  The 
Kew  Testament  does  not  contradict  it.  It  sometimes  seems  to  do 
so,  but  it  is  only  on  account  of  the  emphasis  which  it  places  upon 
the  dangers  which  betide  an  indiscriminate  and  untaught  love  of 
excessive  riches.  Not  only  are  we  told  that  it  is  a  canker,  but  we 
are  told  that  it  eats  men  as  a  cancer  would  eat  them.  The  love  of 
money  is  pronounced  to  be  a  root  of  all  evil ;  but  ncrwhere  is  money 
or  riches  said  to  be  evil.  An  inordinate  concupiscence  of  wealth  is 
evil.     Our  version  has  it  that  it  is  the  root  of  all  evil,  as  if  it  took 

Sunday  Morntno.  Feb.  25,   1872.    Lesson :   Dan.  IV.    Hymna,    (Plymouth   CoL- 

lecUon) :  Nos.  578. 500. 


18  TEE  DECEITFULNE8S  OF  BI0EE8. 

precedence  of  eyerything  else.  A  better  rendering  is,  that  it  is  a  root 
of  all  evil :  there  is  no  evil  in  the  world  which  has  not  been  set  on 
foot  either  by  the  desire  of  wealth,  or  by  th*  possession  of  it. 

In  the  text  there  is  no  declaration  against  riches  themselves,  any 
more  than  against  care.  Care  means,  at  large,  the  ordinary  duties 
and  burdens  of  life.  There  is  a  side  on  which  riches,  however  good 
they  may  be,  are  dangerous,  and  that  side  is  their  deceitfulness. 
They  deceive  men. 

God's  providence  has  employed  riches  for  the  development  of 
human  society,  and  for  the  education  of  men.  It  cannot  be  con- 
troverted that  the  amassing  of  property  has  always  been  a  way  of 
obtaining  manhood,  and  that  the  ingenuity  and  perseverance  and 
commercial  thrift  required  for  the  amassing  of  treasure,  has  at  the 
same  time  blessed  the  world,  tending  toward  peace,  development, 
civilization,  power,  bearing  seeds  in  one  country  which  have  ripener' 
in  other  lands.  Although  attending  commerce  a;id  the  pursuit  of 
wealth  are  many  incidental  evils,  yet,  on  the  whole,  commerce  has 
been  an  evangelizing  element  in  the  world.  Although  individual 
men  may  thrive  in  wealth  in  communities  that  are  poor,  yet  it  is 
susceptible,  I  think,  of  demonstration,  that  poor  communities  never 
accomplish  much ;  that  while  riches  are  not  necessary  for  each  indi- 
vidual, riches  are  necessary  for  large  bodies  of  men,  and  for  the 
race.  It  is  by  their  instrumentality  that  God  develops  men,  and 
carries  refinement  and  civilization  throughout  the  earth.  In  our 
day,  the  production  of  values  is  education  ;  and  more  men  are  called 
to  earn  riches  than  ever  before.  It  can  no  longer  be  said  that  mer- 
chants are  a  class.  It  can  no  longer  be  said  that  those  men  who  are 
seeking  wealth  are  the  few.  Money-getting  pervades  the  mass  of 
society  from  top  to  bottom.  Everybody  is  more  or  less  a  producer, 
in  the  wholesome  parts  of  society.  The  desire  for  riches  is  proba- 
bly more  wide-spread  in  this  laud  than  in  any  other.  Not  only  so, 
but  there  is  a  larger  amount  of  property  owned  j^gr  capita  here  than 
in  any  other  country.  The  stimulating  nature  of  our  free  institu- 
tions tends  to  wake  men  up.  The  doctrine  of  human  equality  is 
coming,  in  this  land,  to  be  universally  accepted.  We  have  no  titles. 
We  have  no  political  or  class  distinctions.  The  distinctions  which 
exist  among  us  are  those  which  we  ourselves  make.  They  are 
founded  upon  Jearning,  and  skill  in  art,  and  wealth  with  its  attend- 
ant excellences.  These  distinctions  every  man  in  the  community 
feels  that  he  has  a  right  to  if  he  earns  them. 

We  have  also  a  stimulant  which  is  derived  from  the  climate  ; 
from  the  soil ;  from  the  vast  unbroken  treasures  of  the  mountains ; 
from  iiie  ungathered  treasures  of  the  wilderness.     The  heavens 


TEE  DECEITFVLNESS  OF  BICHES,  19 

above  and  the  earth  beneath,  the  water  and  the  land,  the  rock  and 
the  soil,  are  all  holding  out  treasure  to  our  glowing  expectation. 
And  upon  this  land  has  been  spread  the  most  ambitious  and  active 
of  all  peoples.  It  is  not  the  old  and  sluggish  that  emigrate.  The 
young,  the  enterprising,  the  daring,  come  to  ouf  shores.  And 
although  they  bring  with  them  some  who  are  slow  and  weak  by 
reason  of  age,  yet  the  character  of  the  population  of  this  continent 
is  that  of  eager  industry. 

Our  faults,  and  largely  our  virtues,  spring  out  of  this  wide  ambi- 
tion for  wealth,  and  this  wide  industry  which  is  manifested  in  get- 
ting it.  There  is  a  universal  movement  in  society  toward  the 
acquiring  of  wealth.  Indeed,  there  is  danger  that  those  professions 
which  pay  slenderly  will  be  abandoned,  while  all  those  ways  which 
have  their  insignia  written  in  letters  of  gold,  and  which  promise 
speedy  wealth,  are  absolutely  choked  with  men  who  are  determined 
to  be  rich.  I  think  I  may  say  that  far  more  than  in  any  other 
direction  the  ambition  of  the  young  in  our  time  is  turned  toward 
money-making — and  that,  not  from  disreputable  motives ;  not  for 
base  and  sordid  reasons,  though  perhaps  in  excess  and  in  dispropor- 
tion. The  generous,  the  daring,  the  educated,  the  refined,  all  seek 
it,  because  all  appreciate  how  mighty  an  instrument  it  is  in  the 
hands  of  men. 

Now,  we  are  not  to  relinquish  this  pursuit  of  wealth.  When  we 
consider  what  we  mean  by  xcealth — that  it  is  the  production  of  an 
active  force  in  life ;  that  it  is  not  simply  a  shadow  but  a  reality ; 
that  it  is  an  instrument  of  blessedness ;  when  we  consider  its  power 
for  refinement,  for  civilization,  for  education,  for  material  thrift ; 
when  we  consider  how  much  it  may  be  made  to  serve  morality,  and 
yirtue,  and  domesticity,  and  religion  itself ;  when  we  consider  that 
the  church,  in  all  its  wide-spread  enterprises  throughout  the  globe, 
is  obliged  to  seek  help  from  riches — we  are  not  to  stand  and  inveigh 
against  riches,  and  we  are  not  to  warn  young  men  against  becoming 
or  desiring  to  become,  rich.  It  may  be  that  there  is  an  excessive 
desire  in  that  direction ;  it  may  be  that  too  many  are  pursuing 
wealth  to  an  extent  which  is  injurious ;  but  we  are  not  to  condemn 
the  thing  itself :  we  are  faithfully  to  point  out  to  them  the  evils  which 
accompany  it.  We  are  to  put  in  the  hands  of  every  one  of  the  ten 
thousand  eager  aspirants  for  wealth  the  warnings  of  God  against 
the  dangers  which  go  with  it,  that  they  may  watch ;  that  they 
may  be  vigilant.  And  this  morning  I  shall  call  your  attention,  not 
to  all,  but  to  a  few  of  the  principal  dangers  on  one  side — namely, 
the  deceitfulness  of  riches. 

1.  Riches  are  deceitful  in  the  insidious  growth  which  they  pro- 


20  TEE  BECEITFULNESS  OF  RICHES. 

mote  of  the  desire  for  wealth,  quite  independent  of  what  it  is  worth 
in  its  positive  power.  No  man  is  hurt  who  fixes  his  eye  upon 
moral,  social  or  domestic  ends,  and  then  seeks  wealth  purely  as  an 
instrument  by  which  to  accomplish  these  ulterior  purposes.  The 
motive  which  he  has  redeems  him  from  peril.  But  the  transition 
from  wishing  money  for  the  legitimate  purposes  of  money  to  ^ 
desire  for  it  in  and  of  itself,  quite  independent  of  its  uses,  is  very 
insidious.  There  are  many  who  pass  entirely  from  the  desire  of 
riches  as  a  power,  to  the  desire  of  riches  simply  as  a  possession.  For 
men  scarcely  study  what  the  moral  effect  of  the  pursuit  of  wealth 
is.  They  do  not  watch  themselves.  There  is  no  sentinel  set  to 
warn  them  against  danger  from  excess.  They  do  not  perceive  what 
changes  take  place  in  them  from  period  to  period.  They  do  not 
look  back  to  see  what  they  are  as  compared  with  what  they  were. 
And  so  the  desire  for  wealth  grows  stronger  and  stronger.  The 
generous  feeling  with  which  they  set  out  is  disappearing  more  and 
more.  The  idea  of  good  to  be  done  is  less  and  less  distinct.  And 
finally  their  ambition  becomes  solely  a  desire  for  the  acquisition 
of  riches. 

2.  In  the  transition  from  a  normal  desire  for  wealth  to  the  fervor 
of  avarice,  there  is  great  danger  of  deception  among  men.  Avarice  is 
nothing  but  a  higher  form  of  the  wish  to  obtain  property — so  high 
that  it  cuts  off  one's  sympathy  from  others,  and  lowers  the  im- 
pression of  the  value  of  things  which  are  more  valuable  than  riches. 
It  becomes  first  a  kind  of  intemperance  ;  and  then  it  becomes,  like 
intemperance  itself,  a  disease ;  and  finally  it  becomes  insanity. 
There  are  few  misers  ;  but  there  are  a  great  many  men  who  have 
the  first  touches  of  miserism  in  them.  There  is  a  closeness,  a 
tenacity  with  which  men  hold  money.  There  is  a  growing  indispo- 
sition to  use  it  for  any  other  purpose  than  to  increase  it.  There  is 
a  spirit  by  which  men  see  in  riches  only  capital  to  be  invested  for 
the  sake  of  its  interest,  which  is  to  them  good  to  be  invested  again. 
So  they  roll  their  possession,  as  winter-boys  in  New  England  used  to 
roll  the  snow.  In  rolling,  it  increases  in  magnitude,  and  is.  at  last 
vaster  than  they  can  shove.  And  when  they  have  amassed  it,  what 
do  they  do  ?  They  let  it  stand  where  it  is,  and  the  summer  finds 
it,  and  melts  it  all  away.  It  sinks  to  water  again  ;  and  the  water 
is  sucked  up,  and  goes  to  make  snow  once  more  for  other  foolish 
winter-boys  to  roll  into  heaps.  Men  go  on  amassing  wealth,  either 
in  the  early  stages,  or  the  middle  stages,  or  the  latter  stages  of 
avarice,  desiring  it,  not  for  what  it  can  do,  not  for  what  it  is  as  a 
quickener,  as  a  helper,  as  a  teacher,  as  a  purveyor  of  God's  bounty, 
but  purely  and  simply  because  it  is  wealth. 


THE  DECEITFULNESS  OF  BICHE8.  21 

Tliis  avarice  does  not  run  alone  to  money.  Men  who  collect 
books,  as  I  can  bear  witness,  often  find  and  buy  them,  not  so  much 
for  wliat  they  can  do  with  them,  as  that  they  may  have  more.  They 
come  to  desire  valuable  books,  simply  because  they  are  valuable. 
Especially  they  desire  rare  books.  If  there  are  but  two  or  three 
copies  of  a  certain  book  in  the  world,  they  are  all  the  more  eager  to 
possess  one  of  them.  And  then  there  is  often  a  desire  to  have  dif- 
ferent editions  of  the  same  works.  And  so  men  enlarge,  and 
enlarge,  and  enlarge. 

I  know  how  misers  feel.  I  do  not  know  how  they  feel  about  gold 
and  silver  ;  but  I  know  how  they  feel  about  books  and  engravings 
and  etchings.  An  old  second-hand  book  dealer  said  to  me,  one  day, 
to  my  great  benefit,  as  I  went  in  to  inquire  about  a  book,  "  Oh, 
you've  got  it,  haven't  you  ?"  "  Got  what,"  said  I.  "  Why,  the 
book  mania.  You  bought  an  edition  of  this  book  of  me  awhile  ago, 
and  now  you  are  after  another  edition.  Yes,  that's  it.  When  I  see 
a  man  who  wants  another  edition  of  the  same  work,  I  say  to  myself, 
*  He  has  the  mania.  He  is  bit.' "  Sure  enough,  I  was  bit,  although 
I  am  now  cured. 

He  that  wants  acre  on  acre, you  do  not  ?    Well,  then  yon 

are  not  a  farmer.  Did  you  ever  see  a  farmer  who  did  not  want  all 
the  land  that  bounded  his  ?  He  would  want  it  if  it  were  ten  thou- 
sand acres  more,  and  ten  thousand  on  that. 

Garments  ?  I  do  not  care  for  more  than  one  good  suit,  so  that 
I  may  exchange  it  often  enough  ;  but  are  there  not  those  who  would 
add  dress  to  dress,  dress  to  dress,  far  more  than  they  could  wear  ? 
Still,  there  is  this  desire  of  increasing  the  treasure  of  garments. 

So  it  is  with  every  kind  of  store.  This  predisposition  to  press 
wealth  beyond  any  legitimate  use ;  this  tendency  to  transfer  the 
proper  desire  of  wealth — that  is  the  desire  of  wealth  as  a  power  and 
benefaction — to  the  desire  of  wealth  simply  to  hoard  it — this  is  very 
insidious  and  very  deceitful  in  its  approaches.    Beware  of  it. 

3.  Wealth  is  deceitful  in  taking  the  place  of  legitimate  enjoy- 
ments in  life.  When  men  begin  the  adventure  of  wealth-seeking, 
they  are  often  generous  ;  they  are  often  good ;  they  are  often  sus- 
ceptible ;  they  are  often  broad  in  their  tastes  and  relishes  for  plea- 
sure. I  love  to  see  a  young  man  go  into  business  rejoicing  in 
virtues  ;  large-hearted  ;  quick  to  respond  to  all  the  touches  of 
friendship ;  alive  to  every  inspiration  of  heroism ;  ambitious  of  dis- 
tinction in  more  than  his  own  routine  or  round  of  life ;  full  of  a  sense 
of  the  admirableness  of  beauty  ;  awake  to  that  beauty  which  God's 
hand  profusely  scatters  in  the  heaven  and  upon  the  earth.  I  am 
always  sorry  to  see  a  young  man  who,  when  once  he  is  engaged  in 


22  TEE  DECEITFULNES8  OF  BICUE8. 

business,  begins  to  plume  himself  on  having  cut  off  these  "  super- 
fluities," as  he  calls  them  ;  who  has  grown  careless  of  everything ; 
who  cares  very  little  for  politics,  very  little  for  society,  very  little  for 
anything,  till  money  is  spoken  of,  but  who  then  is  roused,  sensitive, 
full  of  conversation,  eager.  It  is  not  a  good  sign.  And  yet,  old  cur- 
mudgeons will  tell  you,  "  Let  everything  alone,  my  son,  until  you 
have  a  good  solid  foundation  under  your  feet,  and  then  you  can 
attend  to  some  of  these  fancy  things."  That  is  to  say,  "  Do  not 
listen  to  your  moral  sense.  While  you  are  making  money,  make 
money — do  not  listen  to  taste.  While  you  are  making  money,  make 
money — do  not  listen  to  ideas  of  social  enjoyment.  While  you  are 
making  money  do  not  learn  music ;  do  not  learn  painting  or  draw- 
ing ;  do  not  practice  manly  athletic  exercises  ;  do  not  do  anything 
except  go  to  your  office  early  and  stay  there  late."  And  when  you 
are  old,  and  have  achieved  wealth,  what  are  you  worth  ?  What  is 
your  condition  ?  You  are  as  dry  as  the  leather  pouch  which  holds 
your  ducats.    All  your  juice  is  gone. 

How  deceitful  is  that  process !  How  few  men  retain  the  exhil- 
arations of  their  youth,  or  what  are  called  their  wilder  moods,  when 
they  are  gaining  wealth !  And  yet,  how  much  better  are  these  wilder 
moods  of  untrained,  generous  youth,  than  those  hard,  senseless,  soul- 
less moods  which  men  run  into  by  addiction  to  money-making,  and 
the  absolute  exclusion  of  everything  else  ! 

The  process  is  very  gradual.  It  steals  on  men  as  death  steals  on 
the  sick.  It  is  known  afar  off  only  by  the  gradual  coldness  of  the 
extremities,  which  creeps  up,  inch  by  inch,  little  by  little,  until  at  last 
the  vital  organs  are  reached,  and  the  man  is  dead. 

4.  The  relative  growth  of  the  selfish  over  the  generous  ought  to 
furnish  a  separate  head — and  it  shall ;  for  I  apprehend  that  very  few 
persons  ever  watch  the  process  as  it  comes  upon  themselves.  I  be- 
lieve that  constitutionally,  as  a  general  thing,  youth  is  generous. 
What  is  life  ?  The  remains  of  youth  are  the  best  part  of  it.  Al- 
though it  may  be  inexperienced,  and  may  make  mistakes,  yet  it  car- 
ries with  it  sympathy  with  men  and  interest  in  the  well-being  of 
society.  Men  starting  out  with  good  blood,  good-nature  and  good 
prospects  in  life,  are  apt  to  be  more  nearly  right  than  men  forty  or 
fifty  years  of  age,  unless  the  latter  have  been  by  divine  grace  enabled 
to  cultivate  their  conscience  and  heart  all  the  way  through. 

It  is  necessary  that  one  should  work.  There  is  nothing  more 
wrong  than  to  suppose  that  a  man  can  get  wealth  without  devoting 
himself  to  the  acquiring  of  it.  There  must  be  industry  and  fore- 
thought. Addiction  to  business  is  indispensable  if  one  is  going  to 
succeed  in  amassing  property.    There  ought  to  be  every  day  vaca- 


TEE  DECEITFULNESS  OF  BICHES.  23 

tions  for  the  culture  of  the  mind,  and  for  recreation.  NeYertheless, 
the  gaining  of  money  is  not  an  accident.  It  is  a  matter  of  design 
from  beginning  to  end,  and  legitimately.  The  product  of  the  best 
thought,  and  the  best  thought  applied  in  the  best  way,  is  required 
for  the  obtaining  of  "wealth.  And  the  very  process  of  making  money 
may  itself  be  an  education  of  men  if  they  are  not  deceived  by  it,  and 
left  to  go  without  watch  or  without  heed. 

Frugality  and  economy  are  necessary ;  but  then,  how  easy  it  is 
for  a  man  to  turn  his  industry  into  continuity  without  a  pause !  How 
easy  it  is  for  a  man,  out  of  frugality  and  economy,  to  come  to  ele- 
gant stinginess — that  is  to  say,  stinginess  at  heart,  with  just  enough 
outgiving  to  keep  him  respectable  in  the  circle  where  he  moves  I 
What  is  called  generosity  is  but  the  price  which  a  man  pays  in  con- 
sideration of  being  thought  hot  stingy.  Thank  God,  everybody 
thinks  stinginess  is  mean.  Nobody  likes  to  be  called  stingy.  A 
man  who  is  worth  twenty  millions  of  dollars,  and  gives  six  cents  a 
year,  does  not  like  to  be  called  stingy.  Men  give  to  some  of  the  cus- 
tomary things,  and  give  obviously  in  various  ways,  in  order  to  turn 
oflF  that  imputation. 

But  this  will  not  do.  A  man  needs  to  stand  well  with  himself, 
A  man  Avants,  in  looking  at  himself,  to  say,  "  What  am  I,  after  all  ? 
What  am  I,  in  and  in,  through  and  through  ?" 

The  deceitfulness  of  riches,  I  think  will  be  detected,  if  one  insti- 
tutes a  comparison  between  the  exercise  of  his  generous  feelings  in 
earlier  and  later  life.  A  man,  when  he  was  on  a  salary  of  a  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  found  mean§  of  helping  his  associates.  Here  is  a  boy 
who  was  brought  up  in  the  country  on  a  farm,  and  who,  having 
come  down  to  NewYork,  has  got  into  trouble ;  the  man  goes  to  him, 
and  says,  "  Look  here ;  I  will  see  you  through  this  thing,  if  I  go  to 
the  poorhouse;"  and  he  does  see  him  through  it.  He  helps  a  com- 
panion on  a  thousand  dollars  a  year.  By  and  by  his  income  is  five 
thousand  dollars ;  and  a  friend  right  along  by  the  side  of  him,  per- 
haps from  sickness,  and  perhaps  from  an  unfortunate  partnership, 
has  come  to  trouble.  And  now,  I  want  to  ask.  Has  this  man  grown 
generous  in  proportion  as  his  income  has  increased  ?  Does  he  say 
to  his  companion,  "I  will  give  you  forty  thousand  dollars,  or  fifty 
thousand,  anything,  rather  than  see  you  go  under.  You  shall  not 
go  under.  I  will  hold  you  up"  ?  Is  there  that  tendency  in  his  dis- 
position to  risk  what  he  has  in  charitable  sympathy  and  help  which 
there  was  when  he  was  less  prosperous  ?  When  a  man  has  an  estate, 
is  he  inclined  to  use  what  he  has  in  the  same  broad,  liberal  way  that 
he  was  when  he  was  possessed  of  only  scanty  means  ?  Does  a  man's 
generosity  grow  in  the  ratio  that  his  wealth  does  ?    I  do  not  ask 


24  THE  DECEITFULNESS  OF  BIGEES.     ' 

whetlier  men  give  away  a  good  deal.  That  is  not  the  question.  If 
you  institute  a  comparison  between  the  relative  proportion  of  what 
they  gave  when  they  were  twenty  years  of  age,  and  when  they  were 
twenty-five ;  or  between  what  they  gave  away  when  they  were  twenty- 
five  and  when  they  were  thirty;  or  between  what  they  gave  away 
when  they  were  thirty  and  when  they  were  thirty-five,  and  so  on  to 
forty,  and  forty-five,  and  fifty,  you  will  generally  find  that  they  grow 
less  generous  as  they  advance  in  years ;  and  that  by  the  time  they 
are  fifty  they  generally  begin  to  be  very  crustaceous  and  impene- 
trable. 

I  apprehend  that  although  it  will  be  found  that  many  men  grow 
up  without  having  a  suspicion  that  they  are  deteriorating,  and  with- 
out the  reputation  of  deteriorating,  if  you  make  inquisition  into 
their  life,  it  will  also  be  found  that  the  ratio  of  the  use  of  their 
power  for  generous  objects  has  been  steadily  decreasing  from  the  be- 
ginning down  to  the  end. 

I  have  a  yearly  income  of  a  thousand  dollars,  and  I  give  .away 
one  hundred  dollars  a  year.  I  am  prosperous,  and  by  and  by  I  have 
an  income  of  a  million  dollars  a  year — there  are  such  men.  Do  I  give 
away  one-tenth  of  that  ?  If,  having  an  income  of  a  million  dollars 
a  year,  I  gave  away  one-tenth  of  it,  would  it  not  be  considered  an 
extraordinary  act  of  benevolence  ?  Does  any  man  dare  to  say,  in  the 
pursuit  of  wealth,  "  I  will  keep  up  the  ratio  between  what  I  give 
and  what  I  receive  all  my  life  long  "?  There  are  some  who  do  that, 
and  who  increase  the  proportion.  There  are  heroes  among  moneyed 
men.  Saints  used  to  be  taken  out  of  caves,  but  nowadays  we  have 
Protestant  saints  in  the  ordinary  walks  of  life.  There  are  men  in 
Wall  Street — brokers  and  bankers — who  stand  near  to  the  heart  of 
God,  and  who  are  pouring  out  their  means  in  a  way  which  gives  evi- 
dence of  a  Christianized  manhood  in  them.  There  are  noble  men  in 
every  direction — enough  to  encourage  the  young  to  believe  that  such 
men  are  possible  in  business  circles.  But,  generally  speaking,  is  not 
the  deceitfulness  of  riches  shown  in  this :  that  men  are  far  more  gen- 
erous relatively  to  what  they  have,  while  they  are  young,  than  when 
they  are  old  ? 

5.  Then  there  is  a  deceitfulness  to  be  noticed  in  the  gradual  de- 
velopment of  self-esteem  and  self-sufiiciency  among  those  who  are 
in  the  possession  of  wealth.  "When  men  begin,  they  all  begin  to- 
gether ;  and  it  is  a  fair  race ;  but  they  do  not  all  come  out  alike- 
One,  and  another,  and  another,  drop  out  along  the  way.  By  and  by 
a  few  reach  the  goal.  And  he  that  is  among  the  foremost  begins  to 
feel  his  superiority — especially  if  he  has  gone  through  ten  periods 
of  commercial  panic,  and  come  out  all  right.    How  he  straightens 


THE  DECEITFULNESS  OF  MICEES.  25 

himself  lip  I  How  he  holds  his  head  above  those  who  have  not 
been  so  fortunate  I  "  They  may  be  very  good  men,  and  they  may  be 
rich  men,  but  then,  they  failed,  and  I  never  did."  Yes  you  did. 
When  a  man  has  become  thoroughly  conceited,  he  has  gone  into  a 
universal  bankruptcy  of  manhood.  When  a  man  has,  by  seeking 
wealth  and  gaining  it,  learned  to  compare  himself  with  his  fellow 
men,  he  has  failed.  , 

"  Oh,  they  are  good  men,  nice  fellows  enough ;  but  then  you 
never  meet  them  on  'Change."  The  kingdom  of  Heaven,  to  them, 
means  the  bank.  To  them  manhood  means  the  power  to  get  and  to 
hold  money.  And  it  is  very  insidiously,  deceitfully,  that  this 
measurement  passes  into  men's  minds.  They  come  to  judge 
themselves  by  measurements  of  conceit.  And  at  last  they  walk 
in  life  feeling  that  money  has  made  them  second  Nebuchad- 
nezzars;  and  they  strut,  and  say,  "Is  not  this  great  Babylon 
that  I  have  built  by  the  honor  of  my  name  and  the  might 
of  my  right  hand  ?"  Are  not  riches,  have  not  riches  been,  to 
them,  deceitful,  corrupting,  destroying?  When  I  see  a  man  who 
has  by  riches  been  insensibly  led  from  sympathy  with  his  fellow- 
men  to  set  himself  up  over  them,  and  to  look  down  upon  those  who 
are  poorer  than  he — the  working  classes — the  men  that  are  not,  like 
himself,  pocketous ;  when  I  see  a  man  who  is  so  puffed  up  by  his 
prosperity  that  he  disdains  those  who  are  not  prosperous  around 
about  him,  I  say,  "  Oh,  the  deceitfulness  of  riches !"  The  man  is  a 
fool  to  the  top  of  his  bent,  and  he  does  not  know  it.  The  poorest 
man  in  the  world  is  the  man  who  touches  his  fellow  men  in  the 
fewest  points.  The  richest  man  in  the  world  is  the  man  who  has 
the  most  warm  and  glowing  sympathies  Avhich  connect  him  with  all 
classes  and  conditions  in  human  life.  Men  are  like  great  trees,  which 
never  feed  by  one  root,  but  which  spread  their  roots  abroad  in  all 
manner  of  ramifications,  drawing  nourishment  from  the  earth  in 
every  direction.  A  tree  which  has  but  one  root  running  straight 
down  into  the  ground,  is  like  a  man  who,  by  the  deceitfulness  of 
riches,  has  cut  himself  off  from  all  sources  of  sympathetic  supply, 
and  who  ere  long  becomes  branchless  for  want  of  nourishment,  or  is 
overthrown  by  the  storm. 

6.  The  deceitfulness  of  riches  is  seen,  also,  in  an  entire  perversion 
which  takes  place  in  the  minds  of  men  who  are  prospered  in  respect 
to  what  riches  can  do  for  them.  Men  feel  that  this  world  is  good 
enough  when  they  are  prospered,  and  are  making  a  great  deal  of 
money.  When  material  forces  are  perpetually  working  for  them 
tike  smelting  furnaces  in  iron  districts  which  are  allowed  to  go  out 
neitiier  day  nor  night,  but  burn  on  the  year  round,  then  they  feel 


23  THE  BJ£CEITFUL2^E8S  OF  ETCHES. 

that  this  "world  is  good  enough  for  them,  and  they  do  not  care  for 
the  kingdom  of  God.  But  how  are  they  cajoled  I  As  if  riches  could 
do  anything  except  for  the  body ! 

Let  a  man  be  Tvorth — as  I  suppose  some  men  are — a  hundred 
millions  of  dollars,  and  be  shut  up  in  his  bedroom  with  the 
gout,  what  is  he  really  worth  ?  Or,  suppose  a  man  is  worth  fifty 
millions  of  dollars,  anjl  suppose  the  only  child  that  he  has  in  the 
world,  the  joy  of  his  life,  one  of  God's  little  children,  that  ran  out 
with  him  as  he  went  away  in  the  morning,  and  greeted  him  as  he 
came  home  at  night,  and  kept  bright  in  him  the  only  green  spot 
that  was  there,  is  taken  away,  because  God  will  not  trust  him  with 
it  any  longer,  and  he  is  left  sitting  by  the  empty  cradle  from  which 
has  flown  all  that  there  was  on  earth  of  love  to  him,  Avhat  is  he 
worth  ?  What  is  a  man  worth  though  he  have  fifty  millions  of  dol- 
lars, sitting  by  the  side  of  his  empty  cradle  ?  What  is  there  in  all 
his  money,  or  in  all  his  ambition,  that  can  comfort  a  man  whose 
heart  is  broken  ?  Money  in  your  hand  can  do  a  great  many  things. 
It  can  stop,  and  does  stop,  many  tears ;  but  no  money  can  stanch 
the  tears  of  one  who  has  lost  the  only  object  of  his  afiection.  Money 
can  build  hospitals,  and  alleviate  fevers ;  but  if  you  have  a  fever  it 
cannot  cure  you.  Money  can  save  many  groans  and  sorrows ;  but 
when  your  friends  are  gone,  and  you  have  none  to  love,  your  money 
cannot  supply  your  lack,  though  you  be  as  rich  as  Croeeus.  There 
are  some  things  that  riches  can  do  for  you,  but  if  you  can  get  noth- 
ing but  money  you  are  not  to  be  envied.  Do  not  run  the  risk  of 
losing  everything  else  for  the  sake  of  money.  Money  can  buy  a 
great  many  things,  but  it  cannot  buy  fidelity;  it  cannot  buy  love; 
it  cannot  buy  peace ;  it  cannot  buy  hope;  it  cannot  buy  consola- 
tion. There  are  hours  when  the  soul  stands,  as  it  were,  between 
two  worlds,  bankrupt  for  one,  and  a  stranger  to  the-  other.  All  the 
money  in  the  world  cannot  help  you  under  such  circumstances.  It 
is  right  tliat  you  should  make  money.  I  will  not  dissuade  you  from 
that.  There  are  many  sequences  of  money-making  which  are  noble. 
But  there  are  many  things  which  money  cannot  do  for  you.  So  do 
not  let  it  deceive  you.  It  may  deceive  you.  It  will  Avhisper  into 
your  cars  many  things  that  are  lies.     Consider  some  of  these. 

"While  you  are  embarking  in  the  search  for  wealth,  you  will, 
every  one  of  you,  be  told  by  Mammon,  "  You  shall  surely  be  rich  ;" 
and  you  will  neglect  many  things  that  you  would  have  done.  You 
will  put  your  chances  in  life  in  tliat  direction  because  jon  have 
faith  tliat  you  shall  realize  the  desire  of  your  ambition.  But  not  one 
man  out  of  fifty  who  starts  in  this  race  really  gets  rich. 

If  men  simply  wanted  competence  euougli  to  give  them  what 


TEE  DECEITFVLNESS  OF  MICHES.  27 

they  need  to  eat,  and  to  drink,  and  to  wear,  and  to  bring  their  chil- 
dren into  the  path  where  they,  too,  will  be  obliged  to  depend  upon 
their  industry  and  frugality  for  their  living,  forty-nine  men  out  of 
fifty,  in  such  a  land  as  ours,  ought,  almost  without  a  chance 
of  doubt,  to  have  that  amount  of  prosperity  ;  but  that  is  not  what 
men  think  of.  When  they  say  that  they  are  going  to  be  rich,  they 
do  not  mean  merely  that  they  are  going  to  have  enough  to  live  on, 
and  to  bring  up  their  children  honorably,  and  to  surround  them- 
selves with  the  necessities  of  life.  What  they  call  riches  is  some- 
thing over  and  above  what  is  necessary.  It  is  something  to  be  laid 
up.  And  not  more  than  one  in  fifty  ever  reach  that.  Of  those  who 
are  neglecting  their  youth  and  manhood,  and  are  bent  on  becoming 
wealthy,  saying,  "I  am  bound  to  die  a  rich  man,"  forty-nine 
are  going  to  be  deceived  where  one  is  going  to  succeed. 

It  is  the  deceitfulness  of  hope  in  regard  to  riches  that  you  sliould 
take  heed  to.  One  man  is  a  carpenter,  and  he  means  to  be  a  master- 
builder,  and  to  speculate  in  houses  and  lands,  and  to  be  as  well  off 
as  that  other  man.  He  goes  to  work,  and,  little  by  little,  amasses 
property,  and  puts  money  in  the  bank.  Another  man  is  a  sailor  • 
and  he  means  to  rise  to  the  command  of  a  ship,  and  to  make  ven- 
tures, and  to  own  ware  houses.  He  is  going  to  be  a  rich  man. 
Another  man  is  a  merchant.  He  is  a  dry-goods  broker.  He  is 
going  to  be  rich.  Everywhere,  whichever  way  you  look,  men  are 
confident,  when  they  begin,  that  they  are  going  to  succeed.  And  I 
should  not  object  to  this  confident  hope  if  it  were  not  blinding  and 
deceiving.  It  is  the  beauty  of  hope  that  it  does  not  estimate  diffi- 
culty, but  runs  with  courage  into  things  which,  if  it  stopped  to  cal- 
culate their  difiiculties  it  would  not  be  willing  to  assault.  But  that 
is  the  point  where  the  mischief  comes  in.  You  are  neglecting  the 
culture  of  your  understanding  and  your  social  afiections.  You  are 
not  building  up  a  home,  or  the  competency  to  have  a  home.  You  are 
neglecting  your  manhood,  and  will  be  cheated  of  external  wealth. 
You  will  be  a  double  bankrupt — a  bankrupt  inside  and  outside,  in 
heart  and  pocket. 

And  the  promises  of  the  happiness  which  you  will  experience  in 
your  riches  are  probably  not  going  to  be  fulfilled,  even  if  you  should 
be  one  of  the  few  who  succeed  in  amassing  wealth.  Not  once  in  a 
hundred  times  are  they  the  most  happy  men,  as  I  have  seen,  who 
have  the  greatest  amount  of  riches.  Now  and  then  a  man  is  happy 
in  his  riches  because  he  uses  them  well,  and  keeps  alive  the  more 
generous  and  manly  qualities  of  his  nature. 
"  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 

A  man  who  has  true  benevolence,  and  has  the  means  of  gratify- 


28  THE  DEGEITFULNESS  OF  MICHES. 

ing  it,  is,  or  may  be,  one  of  the  most  happy  men  in  the  world.  A 
man  who  can  go  out  a  knight-errant,  not  any  more  with  sword  and 
spear,  but  with  that  which  is  more  potent  than  any  sword  or  spear — 
pecuniary  power ;  who  can  help  the  young  to  start  in  life  ;  who  can 
stand  and  bridge  over  the  emergencies  of  men  ;  who  can  carry  to 
the  sick  and  suffering  the  necessaries  of  life  ;  who  can  open  the  door 
of  the  school,  and  put  within  the  reach  of  the  poor  and  the  igno- 
rant an  education  ;  who  is  day  by  day  carrying  blessings  to  thou- 
sands ;  who  loves  to  make  men  happy,  and  having  wealth,  devotes  it 
to  making  them  happy — such  a  man  is  happy.  His  riches  make 
him  happy — and  they  ought  to.  But  when  I  look  at  rich  men  as  a 
class,  I  find  that  they  are  not  the  happiest  of  men,  by  any  means. 
They  do  not  enjoy  home  more  than  other  men,  nor  as  much  as  other 
men. 

I  tell  you,  there  are  two  things  which  go  to  make  fine  playing 
on  a  violin.  The  first  is  a  master's  hand.  The  second  is  a  good 
violin ;  and  the  quality  of  the  instrument  is  full  as  important  as 
the  player's  touch.  If  you  take  a  violin  and  first  break  the  highest 
string,  and  by  and  by  snap  the  next  one,  and  finally  break  the  next 
one,  leaving  the  base  string,  and  that  only,  and  that  a  great  deal 
the  worse  for  wear,  Paganini  himself  could  not  bring  very  much 
out  of  that  instrument  except  for  surprise. 

Men  take  their  hearts,  which  are  musical  instruments,  and  snap 
this  cord,  and  that,  and  that,  reducing  themselves  to  one  or  two 
points  of  sentient  enjoyment,  and  then  expect,  because  they  are 
rich,  that  they  shall  be  happy.  What  you  are  in  yourself  is  to  de- 
termine whether  you  are  happy  or  not.  You  will  not  be  made 
happy  by  external  things.  It  is  inside  that  happiness  lives.  It  is 
that  which  is  fresh  and  fruitful  in  you  that  is  to  make  you  happy. 
I  would  rather  be  a  man  with  a  sanguine  temperament,  with  ave- 
rage good  health,  and  in  moderate  business,  with  five  hundred  dol- 
lars a  year,  who  sees  everything  on  the  bright  side,  and  has  a  quiet 
hope  of  immortality  through  Jesus  Christ — I  would  rather  be  such  a 
man  than  many  a  rich  man.  Inconspicuous  as  he  is,  and  small  as 
his  material  resources  are,  he  will  shake  more  blossoms  and  more 
fruit  off  from  the  boughs  of  the  tree  of  happiness  in  one  year  than 
you  will,  old  curmudgeon,  probably,  in  your  whole  life.  And  yet 
you  and  he  are  living  for  the  same  general  end — to  be  happy.  He 
is  happy  because  he  keeps  strong  and  fresh  those  notes  which  vi- 
brate joy ;  and  you  are  unhappy  because  you  despoil  yourself  of  all 
power  of  enjoyment  for  the  sake  of  that  arch  deceiver,  riches,  which 
glozcs,  and  whispers,  and  promises,  and  betrays  you. 

7.  There  is  another  way  in  which  wealth  deceives  men-by  promises- 


THE  BECEITFULNESS  OF  RICHES.  29 

Ho-w  many  men  have  I  seen  who  promised  that  when  they  became 
rich  they  would  do  such  and  such  noble  things !  "  So  soon  as  I 
have  secured  a  competence,  an  independence,  I  mean  to  turn  round 
and  give  all  I  can  earn  to  charitable  purposes."  How  many  have 
thought  that !  How  many  of  you  who  are  in  my  hearing  to-day 
have  thought  just  that !  When  you  began  your  business,  it  was 
with  some  scruples.  Some  of  you  thought  you  ought  to  be  minis- 
ters. Some  of  you  thought  you  ought  to  stay  at  home  on  the  farm 
and  take  care  of  your  aged  parents.  But  you  broke  through  all 
your  scruples,  and  came  down  to  the  city.  And  you  said,  "  I  do  not 
mean  to  be  a  sordid  man.  I  mean  to  have  enough  ;  but  as  soon  as  I 
get  ahead  myself,  I  am  going  to  turn  round  and  make  others  happy. 
I  am  going  to  endow  a  school  or  a  hospital.  I  am  going  to  educate 
all  my  younger  brothers  and  sisters,  and  all  my  cousins."  But  the 
trouble  is,  you  never  do  get  rich.  You  had  not  fifty  cents  in  the 
world  when  you  made  these  promises  ;  and  it  is  not  many  years  be- 
fore you  are  fairly  worth  fifty  thousand  dollars  ;  but  you  do  not  feel 
yourself  to  be  rich.  You  say,  "  If  I  hide  this  in  three  measures  of 
meal,  perhaps  I  may  become  rich.  So  you  invest  %,  and  it  in- 
creases until  it  is  two  hundred  thousand.  Then  you  say,  "  Two 
hundred  thousand  dollars  is  enough  for  a  man  to  start  on  as  capi- 
tal." You  set  that  to  work,  and  in  a  short  time  it  is  five  hundred 
thousand.  Your  neighbors  think  that  is  wealth  enough  to  do 
something  with ;  but,  no,  you  are  going  to  get  rich.  So  that  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars' is  sent  out  to  get  five  hundred  thousand 
more.  Long  are  its  fingers,  and  hard  is  its  grasp ;  and  by  and  by, 
when  it  comes  back,  it  is  increased  to  a  million  of  dollars.  You 
say,  "A  million  dollars  ! — I  used  to  think  that  when  I  had  a  million 
dollars  I  should  be  rich,  but  I  do  not  feel  much  richer  than  I  did 
when  I  had  but  a  few  thousands.  I  will  be  rich,  though."  So  your 
million  dollars  goes  out,  like  a  muck-rake,  scratching  and  raking 
everywhere,  in  order  that  you  may  be  rich.  You  live  to  be  forty-five 
years  of  age,  and  you  die  worth  ten  million  dollars.  You  have  all 
your  life  been  saying,  "  1  am  not  rich"  ;  and  sure  enough  God  comes 
in  and  says,  "  Thou  fool,  thou  art  not  rich.  Whose  now  shall  all 
that  money  be  which  you  must  leave  behind  you  ?  Come  to  judg- 
ment, naked,  carrying  not  one  beloved  dollar  through  the  grave !'' 
You  had  money  enough  to  make  the  desert  bud  and  blossom  as  the 
rose,  which  you  promised  to  use  for  benevolent  purposes  if  God 
would  prosper  you  ;  but  you  broke  this  promise  all  through  life,  and 
now  he  takes  it  away  from  you. 

You  will  be  no  more  benevolent  in  your  old  age  than  you  are  in 
your  youth,  and  all  the  way  through  hfe.     You  are  to  judg^  of  how 


30  TEE  BECEITFULNESS  OF  EICHE8. 

you  will  feel  at  eighty  by  the  way  you  feel  now.  If  you  feel  goneroua 
now,  and  you  will  take  care  of  your  generosity,  it  will  go  through 
life  with  you.  You  must  carry  with  you  the  feelings  which  you  ex- 
pect to  exercise  by  and  by.  You  are  now  forming  the  character 
which  is  to  remain  with  you  to  the  end.  If  a  man  is  going  to  do 
good  when  he  has  made  money,  let  him,  to  prove  it,  do  good  in  a 
smaller  measure  while  he  is  making  money. 

In  these  and  in  many  other  ways  which  time  would  fail  us  to 
discriminate  and  individualize,  but  which  will  suggest  themselves  to 
your  observation,  and  which  you  see  in  other  men  and  they  see  in 
you  reciprocally,  are  riches  deceitful  in  their  dealings  with  us. 

And  yet,  many  of  you  are  called  to  make  money.  Much  of  your 
business  is  the  amassing  of  riches.  "Wealth  is  a  power.  God  says 
to  you,  "  Gain  that  power,  and  uSe  it  for  the  welfare  of  your 
fellow  men,  and  for  my  honor  and  my  glory."  I  cannot,  therefore, 
say  to  you,  Turn  back  from  it.  But  I  must  say  this :  You  have 
entered  upon  a  career  which  perhaps  above  almost  any  other  is  full 
of  peril.  It  is  the  way  of  duty  if  God  called  you  there,  but  it  is  a 
way  of  duty  hi  which  you  must  put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God. 
It  is  not  for  you  to  wait  until  you  become  rich  before  you  become 
Christian  men.  You  need  the  grace  of  Christ  Jesus.  You  need  to 
have  your  head  covered  in  that  battlefield.  You  need  the  breast- 
plate, and  the  greaves,  and  the  shield,  and  the  sword  and  the  spear. 
You  need  to  be  kept  while  discharging  your  duty  as  the  provi- 
dence of  God  has  marked  it  out  for  you. 

If  you  have  been  accustomed  to  feel  that  there  is  no  great  peril 
connected  with  the  amassing  of  riches,  then  the  deceit  has  begun  to 
work  in  you.  There  is  peril  in  it.  He  who  has  begun  to  accu- 
mulate money  ought,  morning  and  evening,  to  humble  himself  be- 
fore God,  and  say,  "  Search  me,  0  God ;  try  me,  and  see  if  there  be 
any  evil  way  in  me."  You  need  to  lean  upon  the  promise  of  God, 
"  Lo,  I  will  be  with  you  to  the  end."  If  you  walk  in  a  consecrated 
way ;  if  you  have  consecrated  your  heart  to  God ;  if  you  have  lifted 
your  right  hand  and  consecrated  your  wealth  to  God ;  if  you  feel 
in  your  very  soul,  "  I  am  the  steward  of  God ;  this  is  not  mine ;  it 
is  lent  to  me  to  be  improved  upon  for  the  good  of  my  fellow  men 
and  for  the  glory  of  my  Lord  " ;  if  God  has  given  you  this  spirit, 
then  All  hail !  You  are  doing  a  noble  work,  and  are  walking  in  a 
noble  way,  and  not  far  before  you  is  the  crown  and  the  city  of  ref- 
uge. But  if  you  have  no  consecration,  no  moral  purpose,  no  daily 
prayer,  no  fear,  no  outlooking,  no  watching ;  if  you  are  going  along 
that  way  in  which  so  many  hundreds  of  thousands  have  perished 
without  conscience  and  without  guard,  Woe  be  to  you  1 


THE  BECEITFULNESS  OF  RICHES.  31 

May  God,  in  liis  unspeakable  mercy,  grant  to  so  many  of  you 
as  /re  in  the  strength  of  life,  and  full  of  vigor ;  to  so  many  ol 
you  as  do  not  believe  in  your  frangibility,  and  do  not  believe  that 
there  is  any  danger  ahead ;  to  so  many  of  you  as  have  a  hope  that 
Is  competent  to  look  the  whole  future  in  the  face — may  God  grant 
to  you  the  shield  of  his  providence.  May  his  protection  be  over 
you.  And  may  that  love  which  led  Christ  to  suffer  and  die  for  you, 
speak  to  you,  from  day  to  day,  something  of  that  inward  manhood  in 
which  your  life  resides.  May  it  speak  to  you  of  those  duties  which 
God  discharg'es  toward  the  universe,  and  expects  you  to  discharge 
toward  your  fellow  men.  And  may  you  be  spoken  to  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  that  other  life,  that  glorious  city,  where,  not  by  your 
riches,  but  by  that  virtue  which  has  been  wrought  out  in  your  heart 
by  the  divine  Spirit,  you  shall  stand  high  or  low  among  the  re- 
deemed of  the  Lord. 


PRATER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

Unite  our  hearts  together,  our  Father,  m  the  sense  of  our  common  need. 
Unite  us  in  our  feeling  of  dependence  upon  thee,  and  of  gratitude  therein. 
We  do  not  draw  near  to  thee  as  to  one  stem  and  vindictive.  We  come  to 
the  bosom  of  our  Father.  We  come  to  the  fountain  of  pity  and  to  the  source 
of  all  love.  We  draw  near  to  thee  as  a  God  of  love  that  hath  taught  us  to 
love.  Thou  that  hast  awakened  the  feeling  of  love  in  us  toward  our 
children ;  thou  that  hast  surrounded  all  our  youth  with  the  tender  affection 
of  parents ;  thou  that  hast  taught  us  in  our  own  experience  to  interpret 
something  of  thy  nature— how  much  greater  art  thou  than  a  man !  How 
much  greater  is  thy  love,  how  much  sweeter  is  it,  how  much  more  full  of 
blessing,  than  any  that  we  can  conceive  of!  It  is  to  thee  that  we  draw  near 
—not  to  our  conception  alone,  but  to  all  that  in  which  thou  art  abundantly 
more  than  we  can  ask  or  think ;  to  the  greatness  of  that  love  which  the  ages 
cannot  weary ;  to  that  love  which  brings  faith  and  patience,  which  waits 
upon  words  through  their  infinite  evolutions,  and  which  is  never  tired ;  to 
that  love  which  watches  over  all  things,  even  the  smallest  and  most  insig- 
nificant. We  rejoice  in  that  love  which  is  serving  all  things,  and  administer- 
ing them,  and  leading  them  forward  toward  eras  of  greater  and  gi-eater 
glory  and  purity.  We  rejoice  in  thee,  O  thou  that  art  infinite,  whom  by 
searching  we  cannot  find  out  in  any  way— surely  not  in  all  the  magnitude  of 
thine  excellence  of  being.  And  we  come  to  thee  beseeching  that  thou 
wilt  have  compassion  upon  us.  As  the  heavens,  at  night,  drop  down  their 
dew  upon  the  flowers  and  every  one  is  refreshed,  so  wilt  thou  drop  down 
upon  us,  this  day,  thy  mercies,  so  that  multitudes,  including  those  that  are 
the  most  sinful  and  the  most  unclean,  may  still  feel  that  God's  bounty  bath 
found  them. 


32  TEE  BECHITFULNES8  OF  BICRES. 

Refresh,  we  pray  thee,  our  faith.  Let  us  not  be  carried  away  from  be- 
lieying  in  thee  by  our  own  feeble  light  of  reason.  May  we  see  how  mighty 
are  the  powers  which  environ  us,  and  what  are  those  etreatns  which  are 
bearing  down  the  generations  of  men.  May  we  feel  our  weakness  and  our 
ignorance,  and  trust  in  that  supreme  central  power  which  is  above  all  others, 
and  better  than  all  others.  Out  of  our  own  littleness  may  we  have  ministered 
to  us  a  sense  of  thy  greatness ;  and  in  thy  providence  may  we  behold  it;  and 
in  thy  grace  may  we  have  in  timations  of  it. 

We  pray  that  we  may  learn  more  and  more  to  make  out  the  invisible 
world,  and  the  invisible  God,  and  the  invisible  administration  of  sure  mercy 
and  glorious  love.  "We  pray  that  we  may  live  as  seeing  Him  who  is  in- 
visible. 

We  beseech  of  thee,  this  morning,  that  thou  wilt  give  to  every  one  of  us 
a  sense  of  thy  power  and  perfection  in  the  work  which  we  have  begun, 
where  we  are  bearing  our  own  burdens,  and  where  we  are  discouraged 
in  the  fight  against  our  easily  besetting  sins.  We  mourn  over  our  vio- 
lations of  obligations.  We  mourn  over  our  broken  vows.  We  mourn  all 
along  the  way  through  which  we  have  so  feebly  contested  for  heart-holiuess. 
And  we  look  to  thee  who  didst  begin  the  work  in  us  to  inspire  in  us  mor- 
ardor,  and  minister  to  us  more  patience  and  fidelity,  and  finally  to  vouch- 
safe to  us  a  victory  over  all  sin  and  evil. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  unto  all  who  are  before  thee  this  morn- 
ing, the  nearness  of  thy  presence,  and  those  secret  communications  of 
grace  which  shall  make  every  heart  know  that  God  hath  thought  of  it.  May 
those  who  are  troubled  for  themselves  be  able  to  lean  upon  thee,  and  cast 
their  burden  on  the  Lord.  May  those  who  are  troubled  for  others  find  all 
the  sense  of  thy  sympathy  encouraging  them  and  sustaining  them.  If  there 
be  any  who  are  ready  to  perish,  whose  hearts  seem  bruised  and  broken  and 
cast  down  utterly ;  if  there  be  those  who  look  to  see  which  way  the  gate  of 
death  shall  open  to  give  them  escape,  draw  near  to  them.  We  pray  ti  at 
thou  wilt  open  the  prison-doors,  and  bring  forth  the  captives,  and  shake  off 
their  chains,  and  crown  them  with  victory.  We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou 
wilt  draw  near  to  all  who  are  in  any  extremity,  and  who  need  thee  for  their 
very  soul's  salvation. 

We  pray  for  those  who  are  not  with  us ;  for  those  who  are  languishing 
in  sickness;  for  those  who  wait  for  death  as  the  watcher  waits  for  the 
morning.  We  pray  for  all  who  are  environed  by  troubles  at  home.  We 
pray  for  all  who  are  tried  in  any  way.  Will  the  Lord  be  near  to  them  all, 
and  comfort  them  this  day,  and  kindle  in  their  hearts  such  faith  and  love 
and  hope  for  the  future,  that  all  their  distemperatures  may  seem  as  a  pass- 
ing dream.  We  pray  for  those  who  are  wandering  abroad;  for  those  who 
are  sent  on  errands  hither  and  thither  upon  the  land  and  upon  the  sea. 
Will  the  Lord  have  them  in  his  holy  care  and  keeping,  and  protect  them 
from  harm,  and  restore  them  to  their  loved  ones. 

Grant  that  all  that  ministering  providence  which  thou  are  enacting  in 
our  behalf  from  day  to  day  and  night  by  night  may  not  pass  unrequit<-d  by 
our  gratiude.  May  we  rejoice  in  God's  goodness,  and  make  mention  of  it 
daily  with  thanksgiving  and  with  praise. 

We  pray  for  all  for  whom  we  should  pray— the  prayerless,  the  outcast, 
those  that  are  in  crimes,  those  that  are  dissolving  in  vices.  Lord,  wilt  thou 
not  raise  up  a  gospel  of  hope  for  them  ?  Wilt  thou  not  strengthen  those 
who  go  out  to  seek  and  to  save  them  ?  Wilt  thou  not  bring  in  many  whom 
men  forget,  but  who  are  not  forgotten  of  God,  to  be  monuments  of  thy 
grace,  whose  testimony  ahall  carry  hope,  repentance,  aad  recovery  to 
others  7 


THE  DECEITFULNESS  OF  BICEES.  33 

We  pray  for  all  those  who  seek  for  the  amelioration  of  manners ;  for  the 
puriflcation  of  the  laws;  for  the  establishment  of  beneficent  institutions 
throughout  our  land ;  for  the  spread  of  intelligence;  for  virtue  and  reforma- 
tion ;  for  justice  and  integrity. 

"We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  pleased  to  bless  all  those  who  rule  over  us— 
the  President  of  these  United  States,  and  those  who  are  in  authority  with 
him,  and  the  Houses  of  Cougiess  assembled.  We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou 
wilt  be  in  the  midst  of  our  coimselors,  and  minister  to  them  the  spirit  of 
forbearance  and  of  peace. 

And  we  pray  that  the  hearts  of  this  great  people  may  conspire  together 
for  things  most  honorable  and  most  noble.  We  pray  that  the  hearts  of 
all  nations  and  of  all  that  rule  in  all  nations  of  the  world  may  tend  toward 
unity  and  brotherly  love.  May  there  be  no  dashing  together  of  warlike 
nations.  May  there  be  no  spilling  of  blood.  May  there  be  no  scenes  of  hor- 
rible cruelty.  Wilt  thou  bring  in  the  latter-day  glory.  Let  the  times  of 
peace  and  helpfulness  come.  May  there  be  no  desire  among  nations  to  pull 
down  and  destroy  each  other :  on  the  contrary,  may  they  strive  to  build  up 
and  perfect  one  another.  May  that  joyful  day  of  promise  come,  for  which 
we  have  so  long  waited,  when  it  shall  be  proclaimed  by  the  angels,  sound- 
ing through  all  the  heavens,  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  have  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.    Amen. 


PEAYEE  AFTEE  THE   SEEMON". 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  us  in  the  contemplation  of  thy 
truth  in  all  its  instructions.  Grant  that  we  may  not  be  puffed  up  by  worldly 
prosperity,  nor  think  ourselves  strong  when  our  strength  is  but  of  the  out- 
side. May  we  search  to  see  if  the  root  of  faith  and  of  love  and  of  truth  is  in 
us.  May  we,  in  the  midst  of  outward  prosperity,  know  the  dangers  that 
attend  the  inward  life.  May  we  not  trust  our  own  power.  May  we  lean  on 
thee.  Protect  us.  Lord  Jesus.  Protect  those  who  are  called  by  thy  name, 
and  who  still  walk  in  the  way  of  danger.  Grant  that  their  hearts  may  be 
increased  in  the  power  of  godliness.  Grant  that  they  may  more  and  more 
dwell  with  the  spirit  of  the  Master  and  with  the  inspiration  of  heaven  rest- 
ing upon  their  hearts  from  day  to  day.  And  let  the  power  which  is  being 
accumulated  in  the  earth  go  to  the  promotion  of  truth,  and  of  purity,  and  of 
affection.  Let  it  not  be  used  for  the  upholding  of  corruption  in  the  world, 
but  for  the  building  up  of  thy  kingdom.  We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  Christ 
J  esus  our  Lord.    Ame/n. 


III. 
The  Realm  of  Restfulness. 


INVOCATION. 

Inspire  our  hearts,  thou  that  hast  brought  the  light  of  morning  upon  the 
earth,  and  driven  its  darkness  away.  Drive  from  us  all  darkness,  and  bring 
to  us  the  light  of  thy  countenance  and  the  joy  of  thy  salvation.  May  we 
lay  aside  every  weight,  and  the  sin  which  doth  so  easily  beset  us.  May  we 
come  to  thee  as  children  come  to  a  parent.  May  we  make  confession  of  our 
sin.  May  we  behold  that  grace  which  stands  ever  open  to  those  who  will 
take  it.  May  we  have  peace  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  May  we  have  the 
blessed  Uf e  which  comes  by  the  hovering  of  thy  Spirit.  May  we  have  the  joy 
which  comes  to  those  who,  as  children,  look  up  to  their  father.  And  so  may 
we  have  the  presence  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  all 
the  services  of  the  morning  and  of  the  day.  Wilt  thou  look  upon  us,  we  pray 
thee,  with  thine  help,  by  which  we  shall  commune  aright;  by  which  we  shall 
rejoice  in  common  songs,  and  in  the  fellowship  thereof,  and  with  new  pur- 
pose go  on  upon  the  way  of  life.  Hear  us  in  these  our  petitions,  and  answer 
us,  for  Christ  Jesus'  sake.  Amen. 
3. 


THE  REALM  OF  RESTETJLNESS. 


"For  he  endured  as  seeing  Mm  who  is  invisible."— Heb.  XI.,  27. 


The  Avriter  is  speaking  of  Moses. 

There  is  something  in  looking  back  at  these  primitive  saints 
that  must  needs  attract  eyery  imagination.  Abraham  and  Isaac  and 
Jacob — those  names  beloved  to  the  Jews — are  venerable  to  us.  Al- 
though they  were  in  an  utterly  different  state  of  civilization,  and 
surrounded  by  circumstances  entirely  different  from  ours,  we  can 
perceive  that  no  mean  measure  was  laid  upon  them  in  creation. 
They  were  great  natures.  Yet  they  were  not  so  very  fruitful.  Moses 
left  effects  behind,  more  than  all  the  others.  They  were  in  some 
sense  pictures ;  but  he  was  a  veritable  historic  cause.  Standing  at 
the  beginning,  he  was  one  of  those  few  grand  natures  from  whom 
the  history  of  civilization  has  flowed. 

The  facts  of  his  history  are  of  great  and  dramatic  interest.  Born  of 
Hebrew  parents,  adopted  by  the  royal  family  in  Egypt,  bred  for  a 
king's  son  or  child,  and  reared,  all  unknown,  by  his  teachers,  that  he 
might  destroy  the  power  of  the  Egyptians,  he  grew  to  man's  estate. 
And  all  t^e  luxury  of  that  court,  and  its  pride  and  circumstance, 
could  not  destroy  in  him  the  love  for  his  own  people.  We  hardly 
know  whence  the  culture  came.  It  was  there.  The  earliest  oppor- 
tunities he  improved,  though  prematurely,  in  attempting  to  work  in 
their  behalf,  and  for  their  deliverance ;  failing,  he  fled  and  dwelt  in 
the  wilderness.  He  was  forty  years  old  when  he  made  his  first  essay. 
He  then  Avent  into  the  pastoral  life,  and  wandered  up  and  down  in 
the  land  for  forty  or  more  years.  When  other  men  were  ready  to 
die,  he  was  just  ready  to  begin  to  live.  At  eighty,  he  assumed  the 
burden  of  that  great  flock,  and  convoyed  them,  under  great,  wonder- 
ful, miraculous  interpositions  of  Providence,  from  their  bondage, 
across  the  sea,  into  the  school  of  the  desert;  and  for  forty  more 
years  he  was  their  leader,  and  legislator,  and  supreme  executor.  He 
organized  his  people  anew.     He  framed  their  constitution  for  them. 

Sunday  Mornino,  Mar  24, 1871 .   Lesson  :  Heb.  XI.,  17-40,    Hymns,  (Plymouth  Col- 
lection) :  Nos.  218,  COT,  l:i51. 


38  TEE  BEALM  OF  EESTFULNESS. 

Sloughing  mucli,  lie  incorporated  many  old  customs  in  tlie  frame- 
work of  the  civil  and  religious  government  which  he  made  for  them. 
And  we  are  ourselves  beneficiaries  of  this  great  man.  Many  of  the 
most  beneficent  and  prominent  features  of  our  civic  commonwealth 
we  have  derived  from  the  original  commonwealth  of  the  desert. 

When  he  was  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  old,  he  died ;  and  as 
if  romance,  that  began  with  him,  was  to  go  with  him  to  the  very 
end,  he  was  not  permitted  to  lead  his  people  across  the  Jordan 
and  into  the  promised  land,  but  from  the  tops  of  the  mountains  of 
Moab,  where  he  went  up,  he  discerned  that  land  afar  ofi" — its  hills, 
its  valleys,  its  green  and  fruitful  glades.  There  he  died,  and  was 
buried ;  and  no  man  ever  knew  the  place  of  his  burial. 

Such  a  life  as  this,  under  such  tremendous  tasks  and  responsi- 
bilities, so  nobly  carried  out,  must  be  memorable.  Though  the 
fragments  are  few,  and  the  range  is  not  wide,  yet  no  person  can  look 
into  the  life  and  times  of  Moses  without  being  profoundly  impressed 
with  his  great  wisdom  and  executive  power.  He  was  a  genius  in 
every  direction — judicial,  legislative,  and  executive.  His  name 
stands,  and  is  worthy  to  stand,  far  back  in  history,  as  one  of  the 
most  noble  of  the  names  which  are  preserved  to  us. 

It  is  declared  here  that  he  accomplished  all  his  great  work,  sus- 
tained by  his  sense  of  the  Invisible. 
r    "  He  endured  as  seeing  him  who  is  invisible." 

This  is  a  kind  of  insight  given  to  us,  of  that  which  impelled  him. 

Men  like  to  know  how  great  artists  work.  Men  would  like  to 
know  what  it  was  that  inspired  Michael  Angelo.  Men  would  like 
to  go  into  the  studios  of  great  jaainters,  and  hear  them  talk,  and  see 
what  they  think  about,  how  they  work,  and  what  secrets  they 
have,  if  any.  We  love  to  hear  of  the  interior  life  and  history  of 
great  generals,  of  great  statesmen,  of  great  men  of  every  kind.  And 
here  is  a  sort  of  an  inside  view  given  of  this  great  statesman.  We 
see  how  it  was  that  he  kept  himself  up  under  his  tremendous  re- 
sjponsibilities.  We  see  what  it  was  that  he  took  for  his  rest.  Under 
his  cares,  and  vexations,  and  annoyances,  and  discouragements — 
enough  of  them  to  have  worn  out  a  score  of  ordinary  men — he 
maintained  himself  to  the  very  last ;  and  this  is  the  way  in  which 
he  did  it : 

"  He  endured  as  seeing  him  who  is  invisible." 

This  was  his  vacation.  This  was  his  play-ground.  This  was  his 
refreshment  method.  He  endured  his  mighty  task  by  divine  reverie 
— by  a  lioly  exercise  of  the  imagination.  He  kept  hold  of  things 
on  the  earth,  consequently,  by  letting  go  of  them,  and  flying  into 


THE  REALM  OF  BESTFULNES8.  39 

tlic  great  realm  above.  It  was  by  commerce  and  familiarity  witli 
that  great  realm  where  imagination,  which,  when  it  is  religious,  is 
called,  faith,  has  its  flying  ground.  And  so  we  see  what  it  was  that 
helped  Moses. 

There  is  this  tendency  in  man,  and  there  has  been  from  the 
earliest  times.  They  Avho  derive  men  from  the  race  below,  have,  it 
seems  to  me,  their  hardest  task  to  show  what  is  the  derivation  from 
anything  below  us  of  the  principles  of  moral  sense,  of  conscience, 
and  of  imagination.  It  is  most  difficult  to  show  how  there  ever 
should  have  been  bred  in  men  this  tendency  to  live  above  material 
things,  and  live  in  the  invisible  realm.  When  you  go  back  to  the 
earliest  periods,  you  see  it  efficiently  working  there.  It  was  always 
known,  more  or  less  strong,  among  these  sensuous  creatures,  with  all 
the  force  and  power  of  their  animal  propensities  acting  upon  them. 
And  it  is  now.  But  it  is  not,  and  has  not  been,  the  result  of  culti- 
vation ;  for  cultivation  tends  rather  to  destroy  imagination  than  to 
increase  it.  It  is  as  nearly  native  or  natural- as  anything  can  well  be 
conceived  to  be. 

Children  learn  by  the  imagination.  What  is  the  imagination, 
but  that  constructive  faculty  by  which  we  take  invisible  things,  and 
make  them  as  if  they  were  visible  to  us  ?  Ignorant  people  learn 
by  the  imagination.  The  religions  of  primitive  people  are  filled 
with  fables  and  creations  of  the  imagination  which,  regarded  from 
the  scientific  stand-point,  are  lies,  but  which,  regarded  from  the 
imaginative  stand-point  are  wonderful  helps.  They  are  myths ;  they 
are  quasi  truths ;  they  are  primitive  verities. 

The  world  has  worked  itself  up  to  its  present  standing ;  and  in 
the  beginning,  far  back,  not  only  in  our  childhood,  but  in  the  life 
of  primitive  nations — there  was  this  bright  faculty  which  is  unlike 
anything  that  you  could  breed  from  surrounding  circumstances — a 
faculty  by  which  people  have  learned  civilization.  For  I  think  it 
will  be  found  that  while  morals,  so  called,  have  followed  refinement, 
refinement  has  always  been  the  product  of  the  imagination — an 
imagination  that  lifted  the  ideals  of  things ;  an  imagination  that  all 
the  time  painted  in  the  invisible  something  better  and  yet  so  nearly 
allied  to  the  visible  that  men  went  on  to  the  higher  state,  aspired, 
had  ambition.  And  to-day,  if  you  look  at  large,  you  will  find  that 
men  are  in  the  active  employment,  in  one  and  another  way,  of  this 
same  dominant  tendency  to  sustain  themselves  in  the  grinding  con- 
flicts of  the  world  by  taking  refuge  in  the  unreal — that  is  to  say, 
that  which  is  real  only  by  the  constructive  efibrt  of  their  own 
imagination. 

Not  alone  the  maiden  who  spins  by  the  wheel,  and  sings,  and  is 


40  THE  BEALM  OF  BESTFULNESS. 

silent,  and  sings  again,  comforts  herself  with  reverie.  Those  who 
are  weary  of  the  tasks  of  life  retreat  from  them  by  reverie.  Thou- 
sands who  find  no  place  to  rest  otherwise,  often  rest  in  reverie.  It  is 
a  sort  of  waking  dream,  and  is  distinguished  from  constructive 
imagination  rather  by  this :  that  it  is  left  to  run  its  own  Avay,  one 
thing  being  tacked  on  to  another  without  ordinary  cause  and  effect, 
by  juxtaposition  and  accidental  associations. 

Though  the  habit  of  reverie  may  be  carried  to  excess,  and  though 
men  may  be  made  too  unpractical  by  it,  the  thing  itself  is  a  bless- 
ing. It  is  a  bandage  that  no  man  should  tear  off  from  wounds 
over  which  oftentimes  it  is  bound.  It  is  the  wings  by  which  men 
lift  themselves  up  above  that  which  they  cannot  master  nor  meet. 
It  is  a  beneficent  dispensation  by  which  we  can  retreat  from  things 
that  we  cannot  endure,  and  live  above  them. 

There  are  those  who  live  in  memory.  Memory,  though,  as  we 
live  in  it,  has  the  constructive  element,  and  is  largely  an  effort  of  the 
imagination.  It  is  very  seldom  that  any  person  remembers  things 
in  their  order.  We  trace  tliem  again  and  again.  We  reconstruct 
them.  We  recall,  to  be  sure,  the  scenes  of  childhood ;  we  live  over 
voyages  and  travels  in  distant  lands ;  we  experience  again  things 
joyful  and  grievous ;  but  it  is  always  with  something  added,  the 
imagination  hovering  over  this  exercise  of  memory.  Multitudes  of 
persons  find  this  exercise  a  retreat  into  which  they  may  run,  and 
shut  out,  in  the  scenes  which  they  recall  from  their  childhood, 
the  dismal  storms  of  the  present.  How  blessed  and  peaceful  and 
virtuous  and  sweet  childhood  is !  How  blessed  it  is  in  parents 
to  give  this  education  to  their  children,  and  store  them  full  of  such 
sweet  suggestions!  For  there  is  in  their  memory  of  experience  so 
much  that  is  bright  and  beautiful,  that  it  becomes  to  them  a 
portfolio  of  engravings,  a  gallery  of  pictures,  a  palace  of  many 
chambers ;  and  it  is  a  refuge  into  which,  in  later  life,  they  may  run 
and  hide  themselves  from  care  and  trouble. 

Make  your  children  as  happy  as  you  can ;  make  their  happiness 
as  many-sided  as  possible ;  for  remember  that  in  them  you  are  lay- 
ing up  treasures,  opening  up  realms  and  regions  where  afterward 
this  faculty  will  minister  to  their  consolation. 

Then  there  is  a  constructive  tendency  which  is  more  overt,  more 
obvious.  We  see  among  men  a  building,  a  weaving  faculty.  How 
many  young  men  are  there  who  have  not  built  castles  in  the  air  ? 
How  many  maidens  are  there  who  have  not  ?  How  many  young 
tnen  are  there  who  have  not,  at  some  time  in  their  life,  been  orators, 
and  imagined  the  audiences  and  the  occasions  ?  Some  imagine  the 
speeches — but  that  is  generally  the  hardest  part  of  it.    How  many 


THE  BEALM  OF  BESTFULNESS.  41 

men  have  imagined  themselves  on  the  quarter-deck,  conraiodures,  or 
admirals,  and  gone  through  terrible  fights  !  How  meaiy  men  have 
commanded  armies !  We  are  great  generals,  all  of  us,  in  peace 
times,  and  in  imaginary  scenes.  How  many  men  have,  in  imagina- 
tion, gone  into  business,  and  made  all  fly  and  sparkle  around  about 
them  !  What  wonderful  enterprises  have  shot  out  of  men's  brains 
that  never  put  anything  into  their  pockets !  How  rich  men  have 
become  in  imagination !  How  many  have,  in  their  imagination, 
opened  mines,  and  struck  railways  through  mountains,  and  brought 
stores  to  the  markets  of  the  world !  What  ships  men  have  built, 
what  engines  invented,  what  books  written,  what  poems  left,  what 
scenes  beheld,  by  the  imagination  !  How  many  have  traveled,  and 
explored,  and  wandered  amid  fairy  scenes  such  as  Easselas  never 
found !  What  caves,  and  stalactites,  and  mines,  and  metals,  and 
jewels  and  gems,  have  there  been  disclosed  by  the  imagination  ! 

Have  you  never  flown  in  the  air  ?  I  have,  a  thousand  times. 
Have  you  never  had  wings  ?  Then  you  do  not  know  how  good  it 
feels.  I  have  been  upon  tree-tops,  and  ridden  upon  clouds,  softer 
than  any  cushion  that  man  can  imagine.  I  have  flown  above  the 
storm,  and  looked  down  upon  it.  I  have  gone  from  mountain-top 
to  mountain-top,  and  seen  men  below  climbing  with  slow  and  meas- 
ured mountaineer's  step.  I  have  been  to  the  top  of  Mont  Blanc 
and  down  again  as  quick  as  thought ! 

It  is  a  blessed  thing  to  have  wings.  You  have  them  if  you  only 
knew  it — not  wings  that  can  take  up  this  poor  trudging  body,  but 
wings  which  can  take  up  the  best  part  of  it ;  which  can  take  a  man 
to  the  polar  sea,  where  the  year  round  the  water  chants  its  own  an- 
them, and  sings  its  own  song ;  and  which  can  take  him  southward 
to  the  tropics,  where  there  is  perpetual  warmth  and  fragrance  and 
beauty. 

I  have  descended  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  walked  among 
rocks,  and  seen  the  jewels  in  the  skulls  of  dead  men.  There  abound  all 
around  the  world,  and  in  nature — in  this  treasure-house,  the  globe — 
objects  of  wondrous  interest  and  pleasure,  if  a  man  only  has  eyes  to 
see  and  wings  to  fly  withal. 

Do  you  say  that  this  is  unprofitable  ?  Then  I  should  like  to  know 
how  profitable  your  way  of  looking  at  things  is !  I  have  seen  men 
eighty  years  of  age  who  have  gone  through  life  digging,  pulling,  haul  - 
ing,  striving,  contending,  sAveating,  decaying,  dying,  and  wlio  were 
good  for  nothing  at  the  end.  And  they  were  all  the  time  talking  about 
"  these  unprofitable  imaginative  men."  What  has  practical  life  done 
for  you  who  have  been  bearing  burdens  and  toiling  all  your  days  ? 
Are  you  any  better  ofi"  than  your  long-ep^;.'ed  brethren  ?     How  many 


42  TEE  BE  ALU  OF  BESTFULNESS. 

I  see  "working  in  life — practical  men,  gradgrinds — who  despise  the 
poetic  tribe,  the  whole  set  of  those  who  live  in  the  realm  of  the  im- 
agination !  But  which  is  the  better,  he  that  goes  through  life  doing 
no  harm,  doing  the  least  possible  mischief,  and  reaping  as  much  en- 
joyment day  by  day  as  is  consonant  with  good  morals,  or  he  that  all 
his  life  long  is  attempting  things  which-  he  never  accomplishes,  and 
is  discontented  all  the  way  through,  and  dies  in  discontent  ? 

Still,  I  do  not  advise  you  to  take  up  imagination  as  a  trade  or 
profession.  It  is  not  meant  to  be  meat  and  drink.  It  is  medicine. 
It  is  cordial.  It  is  solace.  It  is  something  to  help  you  in  the  asper- 
ities and  attritions  of  rude  material  life.  It  is  the  angel  of  God's 
presence  that  is  constantly  illuminating  things,  and  making  you  see 
something  higher  and  better.  Wisely  employed,  it  becomes  a  bless- 
ed retreat.  Out  of  curmudgeon  care,  out  of  envious  and  splenetic 
moods,  one  may  escape  by  a  wise  economy  of  the  imagination. 

Oh,  how  tired  one  becomes  of  winter !  Are  you  not  tired  to-day 
of  this  everlasting  March  ?  Well,  go  with  me,  now,  to  the  fairest  of 
all  hillsides — mine  of  course — and  sit  and  smell  with  me  the  new- 
blown  roses  of  next  June.  I  can  see  them.  I  can  see  my  trees  full 
of  blue  birds  and  robins.  And  the  sunshine — oh  how  bounteous 
and  beautiful  it  is !  How  deep  the  blue  ether  is !  And  from  the 
north  I  see  those  royal  thrones  and  those  white  islands  come  float- 
ing through  the  heavens.  I  hear  the  rustle  of  the  leaves  in  the 
trees,  and  I  can  almost  by  the  sounds  tell  the  different  kinds  of 
trees.  Can  you  tell  the  difference  between  an  organ  and  a  piano  by 
their  sounds  ?  and  cannot  I  tell  the  difference  between  a  pine  and 
an  elm,  or  between  an  elm  and  a  maple,  by  the  sounds  of  their 
leaves  ?  No  two  have  the  same  sounds.  Listen  with  me  to  these 
things.  "Walk  with  me  on  the  hill-side  and  watch  the  ten  thousand 
gauzy  creatures  that  go  flying  and  buzzing  and  filling  up  the  short 
space  of  their  lives  with  the  utmost  activity. 

There  is  no  March  to  me.  I  have  a  cure  for  rude  winter  days  in 
the  imagined  days  of  spring.  I  have  a  cure  for  rough  and  disagree- 
able spring  days  in  the  bright  days  of  June  which  I  see  through  my 
imagination.  When  all  things  are  hard  upon  me,  all  the  earth  dis- 
ports above  and  around  me ;  and  if  only  I  can  set  myself  free  from 
the  coarse  materialism  of  the  body,  and  take  the  wings  of  the  imag- 
ination, I  can  fly  away  to  scenes  that  are  fairer  and  better  than  any 
that  are  real. 

These  are  facts ;  and  I  suspect  that  those  who  deride  the  imag- 
ination are  continually  resorting  to  it.  Where  you  use  it  along  the 
line  of  reality ;  where  you  use  it  in  the  range  of  your  nobler  faculties — 
hope  and  love;  where  yo\i  use  it  so  as  to  insphere  the  other  life; 


TEE  BEALM  OF  HESTFULNESS.  43 

where  you  bring  into  it  the  reality  of  the  All-Father ;  where  by  it 
you  raise  up  again  the  lost,  that  never  were  lost ;  where  by  it  you 
enter  the  fair  abode  which  purified  natures  in  heaven  occupy,  then 
it  is  faith.  Faith  is  nothing  but  spiritualized  imagination.  That  is 
to  say,  it  is  the  picturing  of  invisible  reality  by  the  power  of  imagina- 
tion. That  which  distinguishes  it  from  ratiocination  or  a  scientific 
process,  is  the  imaginative  element — the  glowing,  creating,  artistic 
power — which  God  has  given  to  every  human  soul.  Not  they  are 
painters  alone  who  paint  on  canvas.  They  who  paint  on  the  horizon 
above  are  artist  painters.  Not  they  alone  are  sculptors  Avho  can  cut 
the  solid  marble,  or  shape  the  gold  and  ivory,  but  they  who  by  the 
imagination  can  make  noble  creatures  stand  out  populous  in  the 
heavenly  land,  touch  them  with  the  fire  of  life,  and  be  with  them  in 
sympathy  and  aSection. 

Are  all  these  powers  given  to  man  to  be  smothered  in  him,  or 
only  to  creep  sinuously  along  the  line  and  level  of  the  earth  ?  Great 
roads  there  are  between  here  and  the  other  life  for  great  thoughts 
and  great  souls.  The  spaces  between  this  world  and  heaven  you 
can  dart  through  as  quick  as  the  light  comes  from  the  sun,  by  the 
power  of  the  imagination. 

This  is  the  power  by  which  it  is  said  that  Moses  was  sustained. 
Practical  man,  factual  man,  he  was ;  but  so  wise  a  man  was  he  that 
he  knew  how  to  dodge  facts,  and  could  take  things  as  they  were 
here,  and  could  take  things  as  he  imagined  them  to  be  there.  He 
lived  as  seeing  things  which  were  invisible.  With  society  of  a  re- 
bellious people,  and  all  manner  of  trials  and  disappointments  and 
heavy,  wearing  burdens,  it  was  by  the  power  of  the  imagination  that 
he  ministered  to  himself  patience,  and  renewed  his  strength,  and  was 
enabled  to  endure  to  the  end.  A  man  who  lives  to  be  a  hundred 
and  twenty  years  of  age,  and  is  governor  of  such  a  people  as  the 
Israelites  were,  needs  something  more  than  this  world  can  afford 
him. 

The  last  visit  I  made  in  Washington  was  during  the  life  of  Edwin 
M.  Stanton — the  noblest  of  all  the  men  who  stood  in  the  great 
struggle  through  which  we  came  ;  the  foremost  man  ;  the  cleanest 
man  through  and  through ;  the  wisest  man  ;  the  man  who,  when  he 
had  thunder  of  will,  had  divinity  within  him — one  of  the  few  cre- 
ative natures.  And  with  all  these  manly  qualities  he  had  a  woman's 
heart,  a  child's  tenderness,  and  an  angelic  fancy.  The  last  time  I 
was  at  his  house,  we  spoke  of  public  afliiirs.  It  was  at  that  difficult 
time  when  we  were  striving  with  all  our  might  to  save  a  recreant 
President  from  going  over  to  the  wrong  si^e,  bearing  all  things, 
enduring  all  things,  hoping  all  things,  and  believing  pretty  much 


44  THE  BE  ALU  OF  EE8TFULNE88. 

all  things.  The  conversation  soon  ended  on  that  subject.  Then  he 
went  to  his  book-case  and  took  down  a  book  of  poems  and  a  book 
of  literature  (Arthur  Helps  was  one  of  the  authors),  and  sat  down 
and  began  to  talk  with  me  on  poetic  themes,  reading  this,  that,  and 
the  other  passage.  There  was  that  great  work  of  a  million  men  going 
on ;  this  man  had  in  his  hands  those  springs  which  touched  every 
part  of  our  vast  land  ;  oftentimes  he  was  oppressed  night  and  day 
beyond  the  measure  of  human  endurance ;  and  he  retreated  into  his 
room  and  library,  and  went  to  the  poets  and  sweet  singers  and  noble 
men  in  literary  life,  and  held  commerce  with  them ;  and  he  was  as 
one  who  comes  from  a  bath.  His  soul  was  washed  and  refreshed  by 
these  musings  and  imaginings. 

Was  it  not  beautiful  ?  Was  it  not  natural  ?  Had  he  not  learned 
the  art  of  living  in  the  invisible  ? 

I  think  he  rose  to  higher  musings  than  these.  I  believe,  I  know, 
from  his  own  statements,  that  he  lived  as  in  the  conscious  presence 
of  God,  and  that  he  derived  his  courage  from  the  sense  of  the  Divine 
power  and  presence.  All  the  way  up  to  the  highest  and  sublimest 
heights  of  imaginative  life  he  found  refreshment.  And  so  may  you. 
So  may  all  men. 

The  most  glorious  chamber,  it  seems  to  me,  in  the  Lord's 
mansion,  the  human  head,  is  oftentimes  ignominiously  locked  up. 
Here  are  mirrors  by  which  things  are  reflected ;  here  are  windows 
through  which  you  can  look  out ;  here  are  hints  by  which  you  can 
build,  and  suggestions  by  which  you  can  paint;  and  that  part  of  the 
human  soul  which  is  sweetest  and  most  restful — how  often  is  it 
sacrificed  because  men  think  they  must  attend  to  duty,  and  that 
reality  must  take  the  precedence  of  imagination,  and  that  factual 
truth  is  a  great  deal  more  important  than  any  form  of  merely  im- 
aginative or  conceptional  truth ! 

As  Moses  endured  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible — as  God,  in 
other  words,  constituted  the  center  and  ideal  of  his  vision  and 
reverie — so  it  should  be  in  Christian  life.  So  in  Christian  life  I 
think  it  is.  Our  conception  of  God  is  an  imaginary  one.  No  man 
who  has  only  a  God  of  the  letter  has  a  God.  To  read  what  is  said 
of  Jehovah  and  Jesus  in  the  Bible,  and  to  be  content  simply  with 
that  literal  statement,  is  not  to  believe  and  not  to  perceive.  No 
person  can  be  said  to  have  a  distinct  conception  of  God  who  has 
not  framed  it  out  of  some  elements  which  are  vital,  living  in  him. 
Nobody  has  a  God  until  he  can  say,  "  0  God,  thou  art  my  God ;  I 
have  made  thee."  Man  create  God  ?  Yes !  The  imaginary  concep- 
tion which  must  always  be  that  which  is  God  to  us,  we  do  frame. 
We  take  the  materials  out  of  the  letter.     It  says  that  God  is  long- 


THE  REALM  OF  BESTFVLNESS.  45 

suffering.  "We  take  our  knowledge  of  long-suffering  jis  one  element, 
and  begin  to  mold.  It  says  that  he  is  gracious,  patient,  abundant 
in  goodness.  We  take  these  qualities  in  our  imagination,  and  frame 
them  into  some  picture  iu  our  mind.  It  says  that  he  is  loving,  giv- 
ing himself  in  love,  and  that  he  is  just.  We  take  what  we  know  of 
these  qualities  and  form  them  into  a  personality.  And  that  is  to  us 
God.  And  every  man  who  has  a  vivid,  living  conception  of  God  has 
framed  it  himself  out  of  what  he  knows  of  moral  and  social  wants.  He 
has  prepared  it  by  the  power  of  the  imagination.  Whatever  thought 
overhangs  you,  and  fires  your  soul's  enthusiasm  of  God ;  whatever 
vision  brings  tears  to  the  eye,  or  tremulous  experience  to  the  heart, 
is  something  that  has  been  fashioned  by  the  ministration  of  your 
thoughts  working  upon  invisible  qualities,  and  shaping  and  holding 
up  aloft  a  conception  of  God  that  is  peculiar  to  you.  We  call  it  our 
father's  God  and  our  mother's  God.  We  caress  it  with  ten  thousand 
phrases  of  excellence.  But  after  all,  the  part  which  takes  hold  of 
you  is  that  part  which  came  from  you.  The  materials  are  given  us 
in  the  Word  of  God.  Our  experience  of  the  qualities  which  are 
there  represented  is  that  which  vitalizes  them.  We  take  these  quali- 
ties, these  excellencies  of  the  divine  nature,  and  frame  them  into  a 
dignity,  a  majesty  and  a  grandeur  which  to  us  make  God.  The 
vision  which  Ave  have  of  him  springs  out  from  our  own  mind.  So 
that,  though  we  have  in  the  Bible  a  revelation  of  the  qualities  which 
go  to  make  the  divine  Being,  there  is  a  second  revelation  in  us  of 
the  spirit  of  God  thx'ough  the  imagination.  And  it  is  this  second 
revelation  which  makes  him  vital  and  powerful  to  us.  The  filling 
up  is  our  own.  The  materials  are  furnished ;  the  outline  is  given ; 
but  the  realization  and  the  idealization  are  our  own. 

In  the  exercise  of  this  power  of  the  imagination  one  may  so 
frame  to  himself  an  ideal  of  the  divine  kingdom  that  it  shall  be- 
come as  real  to  him,  substantially,  as  if  it  were  visible,  and  far  more 
influential.  There  is  no  limitation,  there  is  almost  no  circumscrip- 
tion, of  the  power  of  the  imagination  in  this  direction.  And  the 
blessedness  of  it  is  far  beyond  the  blessedness  of  the  ordinary  use 
of  reason.  Not  that  I  would  undervalue  that,  nor  that  I  would  un- 
dervalue practical  wisdom  and  experience  in  human  life.  The  two 
are  joined  together ;  but  the  higher  is  the  imagination,  through 
which  we  perceive  unseen  beings,  and  the  unseen  world.  The  rea- 
son is  overhung  by  the  imagination  and  is  energized  by  it,  and  so  is 
made  more  valuable  than  it  can  be  in  its  barren,  material,  practical 
self. 

Now,  what  is  the  effect,  on  the  whole.,  of  living  in  the  continual 
use  of  the  imaginative  power,  applying  it  to  things  above  us  and 
beyond  us,  in  another  life  and  in  anotlier  sphere  ? 


46  THE  BEALM  OF  EESTFULNESS. 

First,  it  enlarges  the  range  of  our  own  being.  It  brings  us  into 
sympathy  with  the  universe.  It  has  the  power  to  conceive  of  things 
which  are  outside  of  ourselves  and  beyond  ourselves,  enlarging  the 
circle,  widening  it,  and  leading  to  all  manner  of  strange  relations. 
It  is  this  power  which  gives  largeness  to  men's  thoughts  and  con- 
ceptions. 

The  peasant  thinks  that  his  farm  is  the  universe.  By  and  by, 
perhaps,  by  a  little  travel,  or  by  reading,  he  learns  of  the  next  mar- 
ket town.  Then  his  idea  of  the  size  of  the  universe  is  greatly  en- 
larged. Gradually  his  knowledge  increases,  and  he  takes  in  his  own 
county.  Now  his  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  universe  is  im- 
mensely expanded.  By  and  by,  perhaps,  he  becomes  the  servant  of 
a  man  who  goes  to  the  war.  Or,  he  travels  in  foreign  countries. 
And  he  smiles  in  himself  to  think  that  he  should  have  thought  that 
his  farm  or  his  county  comprised  the  whole  world.  Every  year  he 
widens  the  range  of  his  familiarity  with  things.  And  when  he 
comes  back  he  is  as  much  more  than  when  he  went  out  as  his  sym- 
pathy and  imaginative  power  are  more  than  mere  practical,  matter- 
of-fact  knowledge.  And  at  last  he  may  become  all-knowing  so  far 
as  mundane  affairs  are  concerned.  Now  if  we  only  carry  this  same 
tendency  higher  and  higher,  not  only  do  we  couple  ourselves  with 
all  men  and  with  all  ages  of  the  world,  but  we  have  new  possibili- 
ties. We  rise  and  expand.  We  reach  to  the  north  and  to  the 
south,  to  the  east  and  to  the  west,  and  to  the  zenith,  by  this  power 
of  the  imagination.  We  bring  our  souls  into  commerce,  into  per- 
sonal relationship,  with  all  sentient  beings  in  heaven  and  upon  the 
earth. 

This  use  of  a  sanctified  imagination — spiritualized  imagination, 
rather  (this  word  sanctified  has  been  trod  on  so  much,  its  meaning 
has  been  so  perverted,  that  it  does  little  good  to  use  it)— this  spirit- 
ualized imagination  helps,  in  practical  afiiiirs,  to  bring  up  the 
higher  parts  of  our  mind,  by  putting  them  into  relations  with  the 
whole  divine  scheme.  The  trouble  with  men  is,  that  they  see  them- 
selves only  in  connection  with  their  daily  drudgeries ;  that  they  do 
not  see  themselves  in  the  relations  which  they  sustain. 

It  must  be  a  very  barren  life  that  is  occupied  with  sticking  pins  on 
a  paper.  Or,  as  it  takes  some  twenty  men  to  make  a  pin,  what  a  philos- 
opher he  must  be  who  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  put  heads  on  pins  I 
If  a  man  puts  heads  on  pins  for  forty  years,  how  largely  his  mind 
must  be  educated  by  his  work !  And  those  who  hold  the  points  of  pins 
to  sharpen  them,  for  forty  years— what  a  school  of  manhood  they  go 
through  !  And  men  whose  business  it  is  to  clean  the  sewers  of  New 
York— I  do  not  wonder  that  they  neglect  it ;  but  suppose  they  were 


THE  REALM  OF  B1E8TFULNES8.  47 

faithful  and  attended  to  it,  what  sort  of  a  life  would  they  lead  ? 
Night  scavengers — what  sort  of  a  life  is  theirs  ?  And  day  scaven- 
gers— boys  that  go  around  after  swill — what  is  their  thought  of  men 
and  of  families,  who  see  nothing  but  the  fragments  that  come  out 
in  pails ;  who  take  that  which  is  left  from  the  most  piggish  side  of 
men,  to  carry  home  to  pigs  ?  Men  who  sweep  the  streets ;  men  who 
do  the  menial  services  oi  life,  and  have  nothing  else  to  do,  and  noth- 
ing else  to  think  about — do  you  wonder  that  they  are  gross  and 
coarse  ?  And  if  they  go  to  a  drinking-house ;  or  if  they  go  home 
to  rouse  up  the  animal  that  is  in  them  ;  if  they  go  home  to  quarrel 
with  their  companions ;  if  they  go  home  to  "fill  their  maw  and  tum- 
ble into  the  corner  on  a  heap  of  dirty  straw,  only  to  get  up  again  to 
perform  these  lowest  and  most  disagreeable  ofiices  of  human  life,  I  do 
not  wonder  at  it. 

Think  of  servants  in  dissecting  rooms,  who  have  to  bring  in  dead 
bodies,  and  carry  them  out  again  in  morsels  and  fragments  all  their 
life.  Think  how  full  society  is  of  just  such  workingmen  !  If  you  go 
through  New  York,  you  walk  over  the  heads  of  a  thousand  men.  If 
you  walk  up  Broadway,  down  in  damp  cellars,  under  your  feet,  and 
in  dusty  and  cobwebbed  attics  over  your  head,  are  human  beings 
who  stay  there  month  in  and  month  out  working  for  their 
pitiful  remunerations.  AVlien  I  think  what,  in  these  crowded 
cities,  the  actual  life  is,  I  say  to  myself,  "  If  those  poor  creatures 
have  no  skylights,  I  pity  them.  If  they  can  think  of  nothing 
but  what  they  have  to  do ;  if  while  tReir  hands  are  busy  their  mind 
is  busy  with  the  same  things,  what  a  bondage  theirs  must  be !" 

But,  thank  God,  there  is  not  one  of  them  that  cannot,  while  he 
is  working,  by  his  imagination  carry  his  works  out  in  its  relations 
to  benevolence  and  love  and  kindness  in  society.  There  is  not  one 
of  them  who  cannot  take  hold  of  his  own  being  while  doing  his 
routine  work.  The  man  who  shoes  horses'  hoofs  may  himself  be 
walking  the  golden  pavement.  I  have  seen  those  who  soared  in 
angelic  realms  while  their  hands  were  stained  in  the  colo]:s  of  the 
vat.  No  matter  how  low  a  man'^  work  is,  no  matter  how  poorly  he 
is  remunerated,  though  he  has  never  seen  the  sun,  though  he  was 
born,  and  has  always  lived,  in  the  mine,  or  though  it  be  his  lot  to 
delve  and  work  in  the  sea,  it  is  in  his  power  to  be  a  son  of  God.  For 
him,  too,  there  is  a  crown.  For  him,  too,  there  are  songs.  He  has 
brothers,  and  he  has  sisters,  and  he  has  a  God  of  glory. 

What  man  is  so  poor  that  he  does  not  have  an  undivided  interest 
in  the  sun  ?  You  walk  along  the  street.  You  do  not  own  that 
house,  or  that,  or  that.  You  do  not  own  any  house,  most  of  you. 
You  have  no  money  in  that  bank.    You  cannot  draw  a  check  and 


48  TEE  EEALM¥)F  BESTFULNES8. 

liave  it  honored  in  any  bank,  most  of  you.  And  stocks  you  do  not 
own.  You  have  no  part  nor  lot  in  any  of  these  things  which  men 
are  praised  for  having. 

But  who  owns  the  flocks  of  birds  that  are  coming  up  north  now, 
and  that  are  singing  already  in  the  fields  ?  Anybody  who  has  ears 
to  hear  and  eyes  to  see,  owns  them.  Those  spring  days  that  are 
coming,  and  bringing  balm  and  sweet  mpisture  from  the  south — 
who  owns  them  ?  You  own  them,  and  I  own  them.  When  the 
raggedest  beggar  that  walks  the  street  with  head  uncovered  and  hair 
unkempt,  lifts  himself  into  the  air,  it  is  his  air.  And  the  sun  is  his. 
And  the  summer  is  his.  The  morning  and  the  evening  are  for  him. 
God  makes  the  curtains  around  about  his  bed;  for  he  is  God's  child. 
He  is  not  so  rich  in  that  which  men  call  riches  as  that  old  curmud- 
geon and  miser ;  but  oh,  how  rich  he  is  overhead  ! 

There  is  a  great  class  of  toilers  who  have  no  tapestry,  no  pictures, 
very  little  physical  comfort  in  life.  There  are  men  who  labor  with 
their  hands  for  their  daily  bread,  and  feel  that  part  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer  which  you  jump  over  with  so  little  thought — "  Give  us  this 
day  our  daily  bread."  To  you  who  have  twenty  barrels  of  flour  in 
your  house,  that  does  not  mean  anything.  ■  But  there  are  many  men 
who  have  eaten  their  last  morsel  of  bread,  and  who  have  to  engineer 
for  the  next  mouthful.  There  are  men  who  in  the  morning  pray  in 
earnest,  "  Give  us  this  day — this  day — our  daily  bread  !" 

But  these  men  are  not  cabined  and  confined  to  base  materiali- 
ties. They  spring  up  above  them  to  this  upper  arch,  this  all-glow- 
ing, all-beneficent  constitution  of  things.  They  have  wings,  and 
they  fly  up  into  the  realm  of  things  invisible,  and  there  live,  or  may 
do  so.  They  endure  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible.  How  easy  it  is 
for  us  to  retreat  out  of  our  cares,  out  of  the  sick-room,  out  of  the 
house  of  death,  into  this  great  upper  realm. 

Greenwood  has  a  most  elastic  and  bounding  surface,  to  me.  I 
never  have  a  thought  that  strikes  there  which  does  not  bound  as 
high  as  heaven.  Do  you  suppose  that  when  I  look  upon  the  graves 
I  see  tiie  graves  alone  ?  I  see  a  pearly  gate  that  opens  through  and 
through.  I  see  something  that  is  beyond.  I  see  the  invisible.  Do 
you  suppose  that  when  I  see  that  most  impressive  of  all  regiments 
that  ever  were  marshaled  to  the  music  of  death — the  regiment  of 
little  children  that  lie  in  rows  there — that  I  simply  see  those  little 
mounds  ?  I  see  fathers  and  mothers  and  nurses  who  were  so  poor 
that  they  had  nothing  to  erect  over  their  darling  children,  and  who 
brought  out  little  lambs  and  all  manner  of  playthings  and  laid 
them  upon  their  graves.  But  thcL^c  memorials  of  what  love  has 
done  are  by  no  means  all  that  I  see.    I  see  the  households  to  which 


THE  REALM  OF  BESTFULNES8.  49 

the  children  belonged.  Up  from  these  graves  spring  visions  of  care- 
ful hands  that  laid  these  little  ones  to  rest.  I  look  above  and  see 
them  clothed  in  robes — in  white  raiment.  I  see  them,  brighter  than 
birds,  flying  through  the  upper  land.  I  rise  above  the  things  that 
are  visible  by  the  power  of  imagination,  into  the  realm  of  the  invisi- 
ble, and  dwell  in  the  higher  ether  with  them. 

Why  do  you  not  rise  above  your  cares  ?  Why  do  you  stay  where 
you  are  wrought  upon  by  the  attritions  of  life  ?  Wliy  do  you  not 
go  and  walk  in  the  gardens  alone  ?  Why  do  you  not  accept  the 
offer  of  Him  who  said,  "  Cast  your  care  upon  me,  for  I  care  for 
you  "?  Why  do  you  not  go  where  yoii  will  live  in  his  presence,  and 
behold  his  brow,  and  feel  his  touch  ?  Why  do  you  not  go  where  you 
shall  rest  in  his  bosom,  and  realize  his  compassion,  aqd  be  sustained 
by  his  strength  ?  Why  do  you  not  go  and  fill  again  and  again  the 
urn  of  your  waning  power  from  the  power  of  the  eternal  God,  from 
which  we  all  sprang  ?  Why  do  you  not  renew  your  better  self  at 
the  fountain  of  divine  love  ?  Why  do  you  not,  when  weighed  down 
by  the  trials  and  disappointments  which  invest  you  here  below,  take 
refuge  in  the  invisible  realm,  until  you  are  able  to  come  back  again 
to  your  labor  and  your  drudgery,  clad  in  the  garments  of  consola- 
tion, soothed  by  the  cordial  of  the  soul,  and  bringing  with  you 
thoughts  supernal,  angelic,  divine,  which  shall  be  more  to  you  than 
silver,  or  gold,  or  counsel,  or  sympathy,  or  friend,  or  lover  ? 

Our  riches  are  not  made  up  of  material  things. 
"  A  man's  lif  e  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he 
possesseth." 

Our  riches  lie  above.  The  eye  hath  not  seen,  the  ear  hath  not 
heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive,  the 
things  which  God  hath  laid  up  for  those  who  love.  But,  God  be 
thanked,  Ave  come  to  the  border  of  them.  By  this  divine  power, 
this  yearning  aspiration,  this  quickened  imagination,  this  devout 
faith,  we  enter  into  heaven,  we  walk  its  streets,  and  with  the  blessed 
throng  its  temples,  and  come  back  stronger,  more  patient,  more 
gentle,  more  loving,  purer-hearted,  less  discouraged,  to  our  work,  to 
our  suffering,  to  everything  that  God's  will  has  prescribed  for  us  5 
waiting  for  the  day  to  daAvn  when  we  shall  no  longer  see  God 
tlirv)ngh  the  imagination,  through  a  glass,  darkly,  but  face  to  face? 
— and  shall  know  even  as  also  we  are  known. 


50  THE  BEALM  OF  BESTFULNES§. 


PEAYEE  BEFOEE  THE   SEEMON* 

We  thank  thee,  our  Father,  that  in  the  greatness  of  the  way  we  need  not 
be  lost,  wandering  without  sight  of  things  invisible.  Groping  at  mid-day,  we 
need  not  miss  the  path;  for  thou  art  our  Guide.  Thou  knowest  how  to 
speak  to  the  consciousness  and  to  the  understanding ;  and  those  who  are 
afar  off  are  brought  near  by  thy  sweet  influence.  We  thank  thee  that 
though  thou  dost  not  disclose  thyself  to  us ;  though  we  cannot  take  thee  in 
by  the  eye,  nor  by  the  measure  of  our  thought,  yet  we  are  gi'owing  toward 
thee,  and  are  coming  to  the  day  of  disclosure  when  we  shall  see  thee  as  thou 
art — when  we  shall  be  like  thee  that  we  may  see  thee  and  understand  thee. 

We  rejoice  that  we  have  some  symbols  given  us  by  the  way.  We  rejoice 
that  thou  hast  been  pleased  to  call  thyself  our  Father,  and  that  we  have 
some  secret  knowledge  and  interpretation  of  thy  relations  to  us.  We  rejoice 
that  in  the  household  we  are  brought  into  such  relations  to  our  little 
children  that  there  grows  up  in  us  some*  thought  of  God  that  is  higher  and 
hotter  than  that  which  comes  to  us  from  nature  without — ^love,  and  patience 
therein;  the  sacrifice  of  love;  wisdom  given  from  those  who  have  it  to 
those  who  have  it  not;  the  transfer  of  experience.  We  thank  thee  that 
we  are  able  to  fold  our  children,  as  it  were,  in  our  own  lives,  and  clothe 
them  there,  and  bring  them  up  to  the  threshold  of  their  own  independent 
life,  by  the  virtue  which  is  in  us.  So,  dimly,  we  discern  something  of  the 
glory  and  the  mystery  of  thine  own  nature— of  thy  care-taking.  And  we  re- 
joice that  we  may  believe  that  this  is  but  a  spark,  and  that  the  great  orb  and 
glory  of  the  fact  is  in  thee  undisceruible  until  we  rise  into  thy  presence. 
Then  how  wonderful  will  be  the  disclosure  I  How  little  do  we  understand 
here  the  nature  of  divine  love  and  beneficence,  or  what  it  can  work  in  a 
higher  sphere ! 

We  pray,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  we  may  learn  more  and  more  of  thee 
by  becoming  more  and  more  like  unto  thee.  Fill  all  our  households  with 
thy  presence.  Refine  our  affections  toward  each  other.  Make  us  Christ-like 
and  heavenly-minded,  that  through  our  own  experience  we  may  discern 
something  more  of  the  divine  life  and  of  the  blessedness  of  the  other  state. 

Be  pleased  to  bless  the  parents  who  have  brought  their  children  this 
morning  into  the  midst  of  their  brethren,  and  sanctified  their  desire  to  con- 
secrate them  to  Chiist.  May  they  rear  them  in  the  spirit  of  love.  May  they 
be  able  to  create  around  about  them  such  a  life  and  such  households  that 
these  Ghildren  shall  early  discern  the  spirit  of  the  heavenly  land.  May  the 
lives  and  health  of  these  little  ones  be  precious  in  thy  sight.  And  remember, 
we  pray  thee,  all  those  who  have  been  consecrated  in  baptism,  and  all  those 
who  have  been  consecrated  in  the  closet  by  the  prayers  of  faithful  parents. 
May  the  young  that  are  growing  up  be  more  manly  than  we  have  been  be- 
fore them.  May  they  have  more  zeal  and  courage,  and  discern  more  clearly, 
both  by  our  mistakes  and  our  successes,  the  better  way.  We  pray  for  the 
young,  that  they  may  be  shielded  from  temptation,  that  they  may  be  valiant 
and  noble  in  good,  and  that  they  may  live  for  their  country,  for  their  fellow- 
men,  for  their  households,  and  for  themselves  as  the  children  of  God.  Grant 
that  the  life  which  is  to  come  may  evermore  shine  down  upon  the  life  which 
now  is ;  and  lead  them  with  higher  and  sweeter  aspirations  from  strength  to 
strength  until  they  shall  stand  in  Zion  and  before  God. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  command  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  the  fam- 
ilies of  this  flock.  If  thou  hast  darkened  any,  and  brought  sorrow  and  grief 
unto  any,  come  thou,  thyself,  and  interpret  thine  own  work  to  them.    Come 

♦  Immediately  following  the  baptism  of  children. 


THE  BEALM  OF  BESTFULWESS.  51 

thou,  O  Spirit  of  consolation,  that  where  darkness  is,  there  thy  light  may 
shine. 

Be  with  all  who  are  in  perplexity,  or  who  are  carrying  burdens  or  cares 
that  they  cannot  throw  away  nor  endure.  Thou  canst  give  them  power  to 
endure,  Wben  the  thorn  shall  not  be  removed,  thy  grace  can  be  made  suffi- 
cient to  bear  it. 

We  pray  for  the  tempted,  that  they  may  rise  up  against  temptation,  and 
watch  against  insidious  and  easily  besetting  sins.  We  pray  for  all  who  are 
in  any  trouble,  that  they  may  seek  relief  in  thee. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  hear  our  prayer,  not  only  for  the  fam- 
ilies of  this  household  who  are  with  us,  but  for  all  who  are  upon  the  sea  or 
in  distant  lands.  We  pray  for  all  the  members  of  this  church  and  congre- 
gation who  are  wayfarers  anywhere.  Gather  them,  as  we  do,  yet  more 
abundantly  and  gloriously,  in  thy  thoughts  to-day. 

Grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  who  shall  worship  in  this  our  taber- 
nacle— strangers  among  us;  those  who  have  been  wanderers;  those  who 
have  come  back  again  after  long  absences ;  those  who  come  with  hearts  of 
thanksgiving  and  rejoicing.  Will  the  Lord  meet  them  with  a  portion  this 
morning. 

Bless  all  the  churches  of  this  city,  and  of  the  great  city  near  us,  and 
throughout  our  land.  Revive  thy  work  in  their  midst.  We  thank  thee 
that  thou  art  showing  the  marvels  of  thy  power,  and  that  multitudes  of  men 
are  being  gathered  from  the  service  of  sin  and  the  flesh  to  the  service  of 
God.    May  their  number  be  increased. 

Wilt  thou  cleanse  this  great  land  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit.  Wilt  thou 
give  us  wise  rulers,  upright  magistrates,  and  administrations  that  are  less 
and  less  corrupt,  until  they  become  a  moral  power. 

We  pray  that  thy  kingdom  may  come  among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
See  the  scattered  poor.  Look  among  the  waste  places.  Behold  the  darkness, 
thou  that  dwellest  in  light.  And  let  the  word  of  power  go  forth,  and  all  the 
earth  see  thy  salvation. 

We  ask  these  things,  not  because  we  are  worthy,  but  in  the  adorable  name 
of  Jesus,  to  whom,  with  the  Father,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore. 
Amen. 


PEAYEE  AFTEE  THE  SEEMON. 

Our  Father,  how  far  off  thou  art !  Our  words  go  sounding  out,  and  seem 
to  die  in  vacuity.  We  reach  up  our  hands,  and  nothing  touches  them.  It 
is  very  dark,  often,  and  no  light  dawns.  We  call,  and  are  as  little  children 
lost  in  the  wilderness.  Yet  thou  art ;  and  thou  art  found  of  those  who  dili- 
gently seek  thee.  Thou  hast  thine  hours  of  appearing.  There  are  dawnings 
of  hght.  There  is  the  grace  of  the  Spirit  ai'ound  about  us  to  help  us.  There 
are  those  uplif tings  of  our  own  soul  by  which  we  are  able  to  discern  the  In- 
visible, and  take  hold  of  the  Spirit-land,  and  participate  somewhat  in  its 
strength  and  joy.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  to  every  one  of  us  such 
a  constant  indwelling  of  thy  Spirit  that  the  window  which  opens  toward 
heaven  may  never  be  shut.  May  we,  from  day  to  day,  look  out  upon  its  fair 
fields,  its  sweet  scenes,  and  all  that  is  laid  up  there  for  those  who  love  God, 
and  be  more  content  with  our  lot,"  more  faithful  in  the  discharge  of  our 


52  TEE  BEALM  OF  EESTFULNESS. 

duties,  more  earnest  one  with  anotlier,  more  patient  with  each  others'  faults, 
and  more  forgetful  of  each  other's  sins.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that 
this  other  and  better  and  higher  sight,  this  faith,  may  be  so  strong  iu  us 
that  we  shall  be  able  to  say  that  we  do  live  by  faith,  and  not  by  sight.  And 
bring  us  at  length  where  faith  shall  minister  to  sight,  and  sight  shall  be  aa 
faith,  in  thine  own  immediate  presence.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore.    Amen. 


IV. 

How  TO  Learn  about  God. 


■% 


HOW  TO  LEARN  ABOUT  GOD, 


"Thus  saith  the  Lord,  let  not  the  wise  man  glory  in  his  wisdom,  neither 
let  the  mighty  man  glory  in  his  might,  let  not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his , 
riches:  but  let  him  that  glorieth  glory  in  this,  that  he  understandeth  and 
knoweth  me,  that  I  am  the  Lord  which  exercise  loving-kindness,  judgment, 
and  righteousness,  in  the  earth:  for  in  these  things  I  delight,  saith  the 
Lord."— Jer.  ix.  23,  24. 


It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  one  is  to  have  no  satisfaction  in 
the  consciousness  of  learning,  of  skill,  of  power  in  its  various  kinds, 
or  of  riches,  but  that  these  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  the  highest 
enjoyments,  nor  as  the  consummation  of  our  ideas  of  good  fortune- 
We  are  to  have  our  distinctive  pride  and  gladness  far  higher  than  in 
such  matters  as  these. 

A  correct  and  personal  knowledge  of  God  is  a  source  of  more 
happiness,  of  more  power,  of  more  beauty,  and  is  therefore  a  subject 
more  fit  to  glory  in,  than  any  other — a  proposition  which  you  do 
not  believe,  but  which  is  thoroughly  true.  Some  may  know  it ;  but 
the  most  of  those  who  call  themselves  Christians  do  not. 

"We  shall  come  back  to  a  consideration  of  this  practical  aspect 
after  some  foregoing  consideration  of  the  human  knowledge  of 
God. 

In  every  age  of  the  world  of  which  we  have  any  record,  the  best 
ideas  of  that  age  have  been  grouped  together  and  called  God.  It  is 
said  that  God  has  revealed  himself  to  men,  and  that  there  has 
been,  from  the  earliest  periods,  a  divine  representation  which 
transcended  the  measure  of  human  faculty.  In  some  sense  this  is 
true ;  for  the  passage  which  I  read  to  you  in  the  opening  service 
this  morning,  and  which  dates  far  back — almost  to  the  beginning  of 
literature — contains  a  representation  of  God  in  his  goodness,  in  his 
domestic  relations,  if  I  may  so  say,  as  well  as  in  his  justice,  and  in 
tlie  administration  of  pain  and  joy  as  instruments  of  government. 
There  is  nothing  to  be  added  and  nothing  to  be  subtracted  from 
this  picture  of  the  divine  nature  which  hangs  back  in  the  vista  of 
time  at  the  very  opening  of  things. 

Preached  In  Stelnway  Hall,  New  York,  (temporarily  occupied  by  the  church  of  the  Ser. 
Ceo.  D.  Hepworth)  Sunday  Morning,  Mar.  17, 1872. 


56  EOW  TO  LEAEN  ABO UT  GOD. 

Nevertheless,  in  regard  to  the  world  at  large,  and  all  its  races,  it 
is  true  that  in  every  age  the  best  things  which  men  conceived  of 
were  wrought  together,  and  constituted  the  popular  or  theological 
idea  of  God. 

When  men  lived  in  their  basilar  nature,  when  power  meant  con- 
trol over  the  brute  beasts  and  over  men,  and  when  the  warrior  was 
the  type  of  the  highest  manhood,  then  God  was  the  god  Thor,  or 
his  equivalent.  The  God  of  that  time  was  some  thundering  Jupiter. 
The  presentation  of  Jehovah  which  was  then  most  common,  was  one 
which  represented  the  force-side  of  divinity.  But  as,  with  the  prog- 
ress of  life,  society  became  more  dependent  upon  law  and  moral  in- 
fluence than  upon  absolute  force,  and  men  began  to  be  knit  together 
in  communities,  a  new  conception  arose ;  and  you  shall  find  that 
then  all  these  ideas  were  transferred  to  the  popular  conception  of 
divinity,  and  that  God  was  represented  no  longer  as  a  mere  absolute 
sovereign,  doing  what  he  would,  but  as  one  who  governed  by  law 
and  motive. 

As,  looking  at  men  comprehensively,  civilization  and  religion 
still  wrought  upon  the  human  mind,  and  the  sweet  amenities  of  the 
household  began  to  increase,  and  home  began  to  blossom  like  the 
orchard,  and  to  bear  on  every  bough  fruit  good  to  the  eye  and  to  the 
taste,  so  there  began  to  creep  into  the  notion  of  God  the  domestic 
elements.  Tenderness  and  pity  and  compassion  began  to  be  repre- 
sented in  it.  But  as  in  the  household  there  breaks  out  in  every 
mother's  life  vicarious  suffering ;  as  every  parent  in  some  sense  uses 
his  life,  gives  it,  for  the  benefit  of  the  helpless  and  the  ignorant ;  as 
in  exigencies  the  great  drama  of  life  is  enacted  in  every  house ;  as 
all  that  are  good  in  the  family  wait  patiently  upon  the  wandering 
and  the  lost,  yielding  up  their  several  good,  as  it  were,  in  order  to 
reclaim  them  ;  so,  at  last,  in  the  later  days  of  divine  disclosure,  there 
came  to  be  the  conception  of  a  sufiering  God :  not  one  who  in  his 
original  nature  was  constructed  to  suffer,  but  one  who  was  so  full 
of  love  and  pity  that  he  was  the  type  and  original  of  that  sacrifice 
which  we  see  manifested  in  detail,  and  imperfectly,  in  the  household 
for  the  reclamation  of  children. 

The  nearer  a  man  is  to  the  fruit — to  maturity — in  his  spiritual 
condition,  the  more  he  inherits  that  nature  by  which  he  suffers  to 
make  others  happy.  The  nearer  a  man  is  to  the  ideal  of  manhood, 
the  more  willing  he  is  to  suffer  himself  to  save  others  from  suffering. 
The  law  of  suffering  runs  through  the  universe ;  but  it  changes  just 
at  the  point  which  diyides  between  true  manhood  and  that  animal- 
hood on  which  manhood  is  grafted  in  this  mortal  state.  On  one 
side,  the  law  of  suffering  is  a  law  by  which  men  make  themselves 


no W  TO  LEABN  ABOUT  G OB.  5 7 

oppressors,  treading  down  their  fellowmen,  as  the  vintner  treads  the 
grapes  in  the  wine-vat;  it  is  a  law  of  selfishness  by  which  men 
grab  and  gather  in,  acting  centripetally,  and  cause  all  things  to 
rush  to  themselves.  But  at  that  point  where  man  begins  to  ap- 
proach the  other  side,  or  the  divine  nature,  the  reverse  takes  place, 
and  the  law  of  suffering  becomes  a  law  by  which  men  give  them- 
selves for  the  sake  of  others.  The  mother  is  willing  to  watch  Avith 
the  child  night  after  night;  she  is  willing  to  work  with  the  child; 
she  is  willing  to  toil  for  the  child ;  she  is  willing  to  suffer  that  the 
child  may  be  made  happy.  There  are  thousands  and  thousands  who 
are  gladly  spending  their  lives,  and  taking  only  the  remunerations 
of  love  from  day  to  day,  in  the  hope  that  they  may  put  tpJieir  chil- 
dren where  they  will  not  be  narrowly  shut  up,  restrained,  burdened 
with  toil.  And  as  this  conception  of  manhood  develops,  it  begins 
to  appear  in  the  notions  of  God  which  men  entertain. 

I  shall  now,  perhaps,  be  better  understood  than  if  I  had  stated 
it  at  first,  when  I  say  that  the  knowledge  of  God  is  not  a  thing 
which  can  be  fixed  in  the  beginning,  except  in  words ;  that  in  its 
very  nature,  the  knowledge  of  God  among  men  must,  to  a  large  ex- 
tent, be  progressive ;  and  that  it  must  follow  the  development  of 
the  race  itself.  As  our  knowledge  of  God  consists  in  the  inclosure 
by  that  name  of  the  noblest  qualities  of  which  we  have  any  con- 
ception, or  which  fall  out  in  human  experience ;  as  we  gather  these 
qualities,  and  group  them,  and  then  lay  on  them  the  scale  of  the  in- 
finite, and  exalt  them  to  the  sphere  of  government,  and  call  them 
God ;  so  the  knowledge  of  God  goes  on  increasing  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  race  of  mankind.  Especially  it  augments. as  men  grow 
wiser,  purer,  more  self-denying,  more  heroic.  Then  they  transfer 
these  interpreting  elements  to  the  divine  character;  which  to  their  eyes 
begins  to  glow  in  a  wider  sphere,  with  beams  more  full  of  light,  and 
less  filled  with  heat  that  smites  or  destroys.  The  character  of  God, 
in  our  apprehension  of  it,  ameliorates,  and  grows  more  beautiful, 
more  attractive,  and  richer  in  every  element,  just  in  proportion 
as  the  race  from  which  we  get  our  notion  of  moral  excellence  in- 
creases in  moral  excellencies.  There  has  been,  and  there  is  recog- 
nized in  the  Word  of  God  from  beginning  to  end,  a  steady  progress 
in  the  disclosure  of  the  divine  nature;  and  we  see  that  in  the 
thoughts  respecting  God  among  men  there  has  been  a  gradual  aug- 
mentation of  the  conception  of  the  divine  character,  arising  from 
the  process  which  I  have  already  delineated. 

If  it  should  seem  to  any  of  you  that  this  view  would  set  aside 
your  accustomed  notions  of  the  disclosure  of  God — those  which 
you  have  derived  from  the  Bible ;  if  you  should  say,  as  many  of 


68  EOW  TO  LEABN  ABOUT  GOD. 

you  will,  that  this  is  relying  on  human  reason  ;  that  God  in  ancient 
times,  by  the  mouth  of  his  holy  prophets,  and  in  later  times  by  the 
mouth  of  his  son  Jesus  Christ,  and  still  later  by  the  mouth  of  the 
apostles,  described  the  divine  character ;  that  it  was  set  up  as  a 
thing  to  which  nothing  was  to  be  added,  and  from  which  nothing 
was  to  be  subtracted ;  if  you  say  that  this  view  of  progressive  de- 
velopment contradicts  the  conception  which  the  Bible  contains, 
then  I  say,  It  does,  and  it  does  not.  It  may,  but  it  is  not  necessary 
that  it  should. 

The  alphabet  being  given,  the  whole  English  literature  is  con- 
tained in  it ;  but  although  a  man  knows  the  alphabet,  he  does  not 
necessarily  know  the  whole  English  literature.  If  you  take  the 
alphabet  of  God,  which  is  found  in  the  Bible,  it  does  not  follow 
that  everybody  can  read  all  that  that  alphabet  can  spell. 

I  go  into  a  gallery  where  there  are  illustrious  persons  hung  in 
portraiture.  I  see  one  that  I  am  attracted  to,  and  I  look  upon  it, 
and  I  know  this  much — that  it  is  a  man.  I  know  that  it  is  a  man 
of  beauty,  or,  lacking  beauty,  indicating  great  intellectual  develop- 
ment and  power  of  brain.  A  number  of  such  external  things  I 
know  of  him,  but  nothing  more.  By  and  by,  some  one  says  to  me, 
"  His  name  is  Goethe."  Ah  !  instantly  a  vision  springs  up  in  my 
mind.  I  have  read  of  Goethe.  I  know  his  poems.  I  know  his 
dramas.  I  know  much  of  the  whole  German  literature  which  he 
has  created.  And  the  moment  I  hear  his  name,  and  associate  it 
with  that  portrait,  it  assumes  new  life.  It  is  a  hundred  times  more 
to  me  than  it  was  before.  I  say  to  myself,  "  Then  that  is  Goethe, 
is  it  ?  Well — well — Avell" ;  and  all  these  wells  merely  mean  that  I 
am  thinking,  and  gathering  together  all  my  scattered  knowledge, 
and  concentrating  it  on  that  effigy.  I  do  not  know  him  person- 
ally, though  I  know  him  as  well  as  a  book  could  interpret  him  to 
me.  But  suppose  I  had  been  in  Germany ;  suppose  I  had  been  in- 
vited to  his  house ;  had  seen  him  in  the  morning,  at  noon  and  at 
night ;  at  the  table,  familiarly ;  with  his  manuscripts,  in  his  study ; 
suppose  I  had  seen  him  when  topics  came  before  him  for  discussion, 
or  in  his  intercourse  with  men  ;  suppose  I  had  seen  him  surrounded 
by  little  children,  and  seen  how  they  afiFected  him ;  suppose  I  had 
seen  how  noble  personages  affected  him ;  suppose  I  had  seen  him  in 
moments  of  calmness  and  silence  and  reverie;  or  at  funerals;  or 
at  great  public  rejoicings;  in  all  those  moods  and  circumstances 
which  go  to  show  exactly  what  a  man  is ;  suppose  I  had  lived  with 
him,  and  seen  the  coruscation,  the  whole  play,  of  his  soul,  would 
I  not  then  have  a  knowledge  of  him  which  no  portrait  could  give 
me  ?    Having  gained  this  larger  knowledge  of  him,  I  say,  "  I  never 


ROW  TO  LEABN  ABOUT  GOD.  59 

knew  Goethe  before";  but  one  exclaims,  "You  never  knew  Goethe 
before?  Yes, you  did.  I  pointed  him  out  to  you  in  such  a  gallery, 
at  such  a  time ;  and  now  you  say  you  never  knew  him  before !"  But 
would  it  not  be  true  ? 

You  know  many  things  about  your  wife's  relations ;  but  you  have 
never  seen  them.  The  summer  vacation  comes  round,  and  you  go 
to  visit  them.  You  go  wondering  what  sort  of  folks  they  are.  You 
have  heard  a  great  deal  about  them,  but  you  do  not  feel  that  you 
know  them.  The  father,  the  mother,  that  brother,  that  sister,  and 
the  other  persons — you  go  full  of  curiosity  concerning  them.  There 
is^much  about  them  that  you  have  yet  to  find  out.  And  when  you 
go  into  the  household  and  see  them,  there  is  that  in  the  pulsations 
of  life  itself  which  no  portrait  can  represent.  No  painter  paints  on 
canvas  as  the  presence  of  living  people  paints  on  your  consciousness. 
You  knew  a  multitude  of  facts  in  regard  to  these  relatives,  but  the 
knowledge  which  you  had  was  as  nothing  compared  to  the  knowl- 
edge which  you  have  now,  after  having  been  with  them  in  the 
household,  and  communed  with  them. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  Bible  there  is  much  sublime  portraiture 
representing  the  character  of  God ;  but,  after  all,  no  man  knows  God 
until  he  has  jjersonally  found  him  out  in  such  a  way  as  that  he  feels 
that  God  has  touched  him.  It  is  the  communion,  it  is  the  soul- 
feeling,  it  is  the  influence  which  comes  from  the  conscious  presence 
of  God,  that  brings  him  into  acquaintanceship. 

Therefore,  every  man  must  have  a  God  of  his  own.  You  have 
the  Bible-God ;  but  he  belongs  to  everybody.  Every  man's  personal 
identity,  every  man's  character,  differs  from  that  of  every  other  man  ; 
and  every  man's  own  self  is  the  medium  through  which  he  inter- 
prets the  divine  character,  and  takes  different  parts  of  it,  and  in  dif- 
ferent proportions,  and  with  different  emphasis — as  I  will  show  in  a 
moment.  No  man  can  say,  "  I  know  God  as  a  liviyig  God,"  except 
so  far  as  he  has  interpreted  him  out  of  his  own  living  consciousness. 

The  conception  of  God,  primarily,  then,  depends  upon  the  attri- 
butes and  the  qualities  of  the  divine  Beingwhich  have  been  catalogued 
for  us;  but  our  real,  vital  thought  of  God  depends  far  more  upon 
proportion  and  emphasis.  You  may  take  a  list  of  attributes  and 
make  out  of  them  a  thousand  men,  and  the  list  shall  be  the  same. 
Thus,  you  may  say  of  a  man,  "  He  is  truthful,  tender,  faithful,  gen- 
erous, industrious,  thoughtful."  All  those  qualities  are  true  of  a 
thousand  men.  They  do  not  discriminate  one  man  from  another. 
Here  is  a  man  who  is  truthful,  industrious,  faithful,  thoughtful, 
active;  but  he  is  a  painter,  and  his  life  comes  through  the  sense 
of  beauty  in  form  and  color.      Another  man,  with  precisely  the 


60  HOW  TO  LEABN  ABOUT  GOB. 

same  general  qualities,  is  a  merchant.  Another  is  a  statesman. 
Another  is  a  mechanic.  Another  is  a  voyager.  One  is  full  of  delicacy. 
He  has  a  woman's  nature.  Another  man,  with  just  these  same 
qualities,  is  robust  and  sturdy.  He  is  trained  in  the  more  vigorous 
exercises  of  life.  You  see  you  cannot  discriminate  between  one 
man  and  another  merely  by  the  recapitulation  of  these  qualities. 

Now,  suppose  you  say  of  God,  "  He  is  just,  true,  righteous,  pure, 
benevolent,  lovely."  Those  qualities  being  enumerated,  there  will 
probably  be  in  this  audience  a  thousand  different  conceptions  of  the 
personality  which  they  go  to  make  up. 

What  are  the  circumstances  which  will  make  this  difference  yi 
your  conceptions  of  the  divine  nature  ?  I  will  explain.  Some  there 
are  here  who  are  far  more  sensible  to  physical  qualities  than 
others.  The  sublimity  of  power  is  to  their  thought  one  of  the  chief 
divine  attributes.  God  is  omnipotent.  That  idea  touches  them. 
He  is  omjiiscient.  Their  eyes  sparkle  when  they  think  of  that.  He 
is  omnipresent.  They  have  a  sense  of  that.  He  is  majestic.  He 
has  wondrous  power.  He  fills  the  heavens.  He  thunders  in  sum- 
mer. He  breaks  down  the  forests  by  his  tornadoes.  He  sinks  ships 
by  his  storms.  According  to  their  conception  he  is  God  of  all  the 
earth.  None  can  resist  his  might.  He  doth  what  he  will.  He  is 
supreme"  in  the  councils  of  heaven  and  among  the  people  of  the 
earth.  There  are  a  great  many  of  you  who  feel,  "  That  is  the  kind  of 
God  that  I  want — a  God  who  has  substance  and  power  in  him."  That 
is  your  sense  of  God.  If  you  only  have  such  a  God,  you  are  sat- 
isfied. 

Another  person  wants  a  scientific  God.  He  says,  "  I  perceive 
that  there  is  a  law  of  light,  a  law  of  heat,  a  law  of  electricity ;  I  see 
that  everything  is  fashioned  by  law;  and  my  idea  of  God  is  that  he 
must  be  supreme  in  science ;  that  there  are  to  be  found  in  him  all 
those  qualities  which  science  is  interpreting  to  me."  His  God  will 
be  just,  generous,  faithful,  but  lie  will  be  just,  generous,  faithful, 
after  the  fashion  of  some  Agassi  z,  or  some  Cuvier,  or  some  Faraday. 
His  God  will  be  some  form  of  being  lifted  up  to  great  supremacy  in 
the  direction  of  science. 

Another  man  conceives  of  God  from  the  domestic  side.  It  is 
the  mother-nature  that  he  thinks  of — the  nature  that  is  full  of  gen- 
tleness; full  of  kindness;  full  of  sympathy;  full  of  sweetness;  full 
of  elevated  tastes  and  relishes ;  full  of  songs ;  full  of  all  manner  of 
joy-producing  qualities.  His  conception  of  God  will  fill  liis  mind 
full  of  little  glinting  lights  scarcely  worthy  to  be  described  in  lan- 
guage, but  going  to  make  up  his  ideal. 

Another,  who  is  an  artist,  will  feel  after  the  God  of  the  rainbow 
— a  God  of  beauty. 


no  W  TO  LEABN  ABO  UT  GOD.  €  L 

So  every  person  will  be  dep'endent  upon  the  most  sensitive  parts 
of  his  own  soul  for  his  interpretation  of  God.  What  is  it  that  makes 
one  flower  blue  and  another  scarlet  ?  No  flower  reflects  all  the  lijrht. 
If  a  flower  is  purple  it  absorbs  a  part  and  reflects  the  rest.  If  it  is 
blue  it  absorbs  some  of  the  parts  and  reflects  others.  The  same  is 
true  if  it  is  red.  And  as  it  is  with  the  colors  of  flowers,  so  it  is  with 
our  conception  of  God.  What  you  are  susceptible  of,  and  what  you 
are  sensitive  to,  in  the  divine  nature,  largely  determines  what  your 
conception  of  God  is.  There  are  many  elements  which  are  common 
to  the  conceptions  which  all  persons  form  of  God ;  but  each  indi- 
vidual puts  emphasis  on  that  part  of  the  character  of  God  which 
his  own  mind  is  best  fitted  to  grasp. 

For  instance,  God  is  said  to  be  a  God  of  justice,  of  truth  and  of 
benevolence.  Now,  Avhich  of  those  elements  is  first?  Which  gov- 
erns the  others?  It  makes  a  difference  Avhich  qualities  are  subor- 
dinate, and  which  are  predominant.  It  makes  a  difference  which 
governs  and  which  is  governed.  There  are  several  parts  to  every 
piece  of  music,  and  it  makes  a  diflference  which  of  these  parts  is  the 
light  and  which  is  the  shade  of  harmony.  And  so  it  is  in  the  con- 
ception of  character. 

We  see  this  among  men.  We  know  a  man  to  be  good  and  kind ; 
but  he  is  stubborn.  He  is  like  those  geodes — stones  which  are  rough 
on  the  outside,  but  which,  if  you  break  them,  are  full  of  crystals.  We 
know  men  who  are  outwardly  hard  and  rough,  and  force  their 
way  through  life.  At  home,  in  the  domestic  sphere,  they  are  full 
of  sweetness  and  beauty ;  but  the  sternness  dominates,  and  the  beauty 
is  subordinate,  and  only  fills  the  chinks  of  life.  Another  man  is 
stern  ;  but  the  element  of  benevolence  dominates  and  rules  in  him. 
Everything  else  is  subordinate  to  that.  The  same  qualities  may  ex- 
ist in  different  persons,  and  yet  their  characters  may  differ,  from  the 
fact  that  the  emphasis  is  put  upon  one  quality  in  one,  and  upon 
another  quality  in  another. 

One  theology  holds  that  God  is  a  supreme  Judge  and  Lawgiver. 
It  holds  that  he  is  just  and  true  first ;  and  that  whatever  is  in  him 
of  goodness  and  kindness  and  gentleness  is  to  be  considered  after 
he  has  had  full  swing  of  those  attributes.  The  theology  which 
forms  that  conception  of  God  I  call  the  High  Calvinistic. 

Another  theology  holds  that  though  God  is  just,  he  is  promi- 
nently a  God  of  goodness  and  love — love  outshining  ;  love  filling 
the  heavens  ;  love  pouring  itself  out  as  the  sun  pours  itself  over  all 
the  earth  ;  love  that,  like  the  light,  searches  everywhere,  leaving 
nothing  unglorified  ;  love  that  calls  into  life  and  beauty  the  very 
mosses  which  have  only  the  rock  for  a  mother  ;  love  that  makes  tho 


62  ROW  TO  LUABN  ABOUT  GOD. 

stick  radicant ;  love  that  makes  the  very  barren  sand  beautiful ;  love 
that  speaks  through  the  dew-drop  and  the  rain-drop  ;  love  that 
makes  everything  radiant  and  beautiful  in  all  the  earth.  Let  that 
be  the  first  thought.  Then  in  carrying  out,  in  exercising,  this 
love,  there  is  a  necessity  of  pain.  Love  does  not  scrujale  to  give  pain 
any  more  than  a  mother  does.  If  to  save  bitterness,  bitterness  needs 
to  be  taken  into  the  stomach  of  the  child,  bitterness  must  be  ad- 
ministered ;  and  it  will  be  administered  in  love.  If  to  restore 
the  child's  health  it  needs  to  be  starved,  it  is  starved  ;  and  love 
starves  it.  If  the  child,  for  the  sake  of  its  disposition  needs  to  have 
some  physical  help  to  overcome  its  temper,  help  it  shall  have  ;  and 
it  is  love  that  gives  it. 

It  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference  which  end  first  you  put  attri- 
butes in  the  divine  character.  If  God  is  first  sternly  just,  and  then 
suffers  and  is  kind,  that  is  one  sort  of  God.  If  he  is  first  loving, 
and  then  in  the  service  of  love  is  stern,  and  severe  even,  that  is 
another  kind  of  God.  I  hold  that  the  emphasis  which  you  put 
upon  the  divine  attributes  determines  the  character  of  God  in  your 
mind  ;  and  when  you  say,  "  I  hold  that  God  is  omniscient,  omnip- 
otent, omnipresent,  just,  good,  true,  faithful,  benevolent,"  you 
have  said  what  this  man  says,  what  that  man  says,  and  what  I  say. 
We  are  all  agreed,  then,  are  we  ?  Oh,  no !  If  I  could  take  a 
Daguerrean  picture  of  the  conception  which  each  man  forms  of 
God,  it  would  be  found  that  one  puts  more  emphasis  on  justice  than 
love,  and  that  another  puts  more  emphasis  on  love  than  on  justice. 
It  would  be  found  that  one  emphasizes  one  attribute,  and  another 
its  opposite  ;  and  that  the  conception  which  each  one  forms  of  the 
divine  character  depends  upon  the  quality  which  he  emphasizes 
most. 

There  are  persons  who  say,  "  It  needs  nothing  but  clear  teach- 
ing to  have  everybody  agree  upon  the  character  of  God."  You 
might  as  well  say  that  one  man  could  drain  the  whole  Atlantic 
Ocean,  or  breathe  the  total  atmosphere  above  his  head.  God 
is  infinite  ;  and  there  is  so  much  of  him  that  it  takes  the  sum  of 
hundreds  of  men's  thoughts  put  together  to  begin  to  touch  the  hem 
of  his  garment.  God,  the  everlasting  Father — do  you  suppose  that 
you  can  comprehend  him,  any  one  of  you  ?  You  can  take  in  a 
little  of  the  knowledge  of  him,  and  it  is  true  as  far  as  it  goes  ;  but 
it  goes  only  a  little  way.  It  is  enough  to  be  of  service  to  you,  it  is 
enough  to  guide  you,  it  is  enough  to  comfort  you  ;  but  it  is  only  a 
paragraph  of  the  great  volume  to  which  it  belongs. 

Is  there  anything  more  sad  than  to  see  two  persons  living  to- 
gether, one  having  a  great  and  rich  nature  which  the  other  is  not 


HOW  TO  LEAEN  ABOUT  GOD.  63 

able  to  understand  ?  I  have  seen  husbands  and  wives  who  were  ill- 
matched  in  this  way.  I  have  in  my  mind  such  a  couple.  They 
have  both  gone  to  heaven.  I  hope  that  it  is  different  with  them 
there ;  but  on  earth  she  was  radiant  and  royal  in  all  those  qualities 
of  womanhood  which  make  one  thank  God ;  and  he  was  a  small 
pattern  of  a  man  who  ran  after  her  with  a  kind  of  admiration  for 
what  she  knew,  and  with  a  vague  impression  that  there  was  some- 
thing about  her  that  he  did  not  know — which  was  very  true. 

I  see  people  running  after  G-od  very  much  so.  All  of  us  have  a 
conception  of  some  parts  of  his  nature;  we  have  a  dim  understand- 
ing of  some  of  his  attributes ;  we  see  him  through  a  glass  darkly ; 
but  by  and  by,  when  we  go  home  to  heaven,  and  only  then,  we  shall 
see  him  face  to  face. 

It  is  not  possible,  my  brethren,  that  there  should  be  absolute 
unity.  One  man  will  have  his  picture  of  God,  and  another  man 
will  have  his,  and  another  will  have  his,  and  they  will  all  be  true, 
but  they  will  all  be  partial.  They  will  be  true  in  the  same  sense  \ 
that  what  is  true  of  one  leaf  of  an  apple  tree  is  true  of  the  whole 
orchard.  They  will  be  true  in  the  same  sense  in  which  a  little  bit 
of  landscape  which  you  pick  out  from  nature  and  put  on  your  can- 
vas is  true  of  the  whole  of  nature.  It  does  not  represent  nature. 
Nature  is  bigger  than  that.  It  has  more  sides  to  it  than  that.  One 
landscape  is  of  rocks  ;  another  is  of  sand  on  the  sea-shore ;  another 
is  of  the  tranquil  sea ;  another  is  of  the  glacier ;  another  is  of  fields 
and  forests.  Nature  is  complex,  and  cannot  all  be  represented  by  a 
single  picture.  And  so  the  whole  of  God  transcends  the  concep- 
tion of  any  one  human  being.  We  know  in  part ;  but  when  that 
which  is  perfect  is  come,  then  we  shall  know  as  we  are  known.  We 
shall  see  Him  as  he  is.  Such  is  the  interpretation  of  the  Word  of 
God. 

The  next  question  which  you  would  naturally  propound  to  me, 
is,  "  Since  these  are  the  ways  in  which  God  is  conceived  of  by  men, 
how  shall  each  fashion  in  himself  the  living  God  ?"  I  call  the  Bible  ' 
a  picture  gallery.  It  is  an  historical  record  which  is  open  to  all ;  but 
it  behooves  us  each  to  have  some  conception  Avliich  we  call  our  God, 
our  Father's  God,  the  living  God.  I  know  of  no  other  way  than 
that  which  has  been  practiced  by  the  race  from  the  beginning.  I 
know  of  no  other  way  than  for  you,  in  filling  out  the  catalogue 
Avhich  the  Word  of  God  gives  you  of  the  elements  of  the  divine  na- 
ture, to  employ  i\\Q  actual  perceptions  and  experiences  of  this  life, 
in  order  to  kindle  before  your  mind  those  qualities  which  other- 
wise would  be  abstract  to  you. 

For  instance,  w^  are  to  know  "  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth 


64  now  TO  LIJAEN  ABOUT  GOD. 

knowledge."  This  has  seemed  almost  contradictory  to  many  per- 
sons. They  have  so  low  an  experience  of  love  in  the  world  that 
they  have  no  color  on  their  pallette  with  which  to  draw  the  portrait 
of  that  part  of  God.  A  person  who  has  seen  love  in  hnman  life ; 
who  has  seen  the  wealth  of  it ;  its  lights  and  shades ;  its  heights  and 
depths  ;  its  beauty ;  its  permanence — snch  a  person  has  a  rich  foun- 
tain of  inspiration. 

Blessed  be  those  men  to  whom  God  gave  a  mother  that  stands  in 
their  imagination  and  memory  as  the  Virgin  Mary  stands  to  the 
worshiping  Catholic,  the  sum  of  all  goodness !  Woe  be  to  him  who 
has  never  had  a  sister,  a  wife  or  a  mother,  who  was  to  him  a  per- 
petual suggestion  of  the  nobleness,  the  sweetness,  and  the  delicacy 
of  love.  When  I  think  of  God,  I  think  of  the  goodness  that  I  have 
known  in  such  a  one,  and  in  such  a  one,  and  in  such  a  one.  When 
I  have  brought  to  me  some  rare  tale  of  devoted  love,  the  light  of  it 
does  not  stop  with  the  person  about  whom  it  is  spoken :  it  flashes 
out  toward  God ;  and  so  I  get  an  interior  view  of  the  divine  nature. 
The  glowing  mass  I  cannot  understand ;  but  I  transfer  this  little 
spark  out  of  the  household  to  the  divine  nature,  and  give  it  infinite 
proportions ;  and  then  I  say  to  myself,  "  Oh,  that  is  the  nature 
of  God!" 

.1  know  of  parents  who  live  on  the  cross  perpetually.  I  know 
of  parents  who  have  one,  two,  three  children  ;  and  I  speak  the  truth, 
I  lie  not,  when  I  say  that  the  greatest  joy  which  could  be  borne  to 
them  would  be  the  message,  "  Your  child  is  dead."  What  a  life  is 
theirs  !  And  yet,  I  know  there  is  no  kindness  too  great  for  them  to 
show  toward  those  children.  I  know  that  there  is  a  patience  which 
never  wears  out.  I  know  that  those  who  are  good  do  not  receive  a 
tithe  of  the  yearning  and  sympathy  which  those  who  are  bad  receive. 
I  see  what  the  heart  of  great  natures  is  when  in  pursuit  of  those 
•who  are  out  of  the  way  and  are  in  danger  of  perishing.  I  see  what 
the  baptism  of  love  is.  I  see  what  its  tenacity  is.  I  see 
what  its  fertility  is.  I  see  how  it  will  suffer  and  watch  and 
work,  and  never  fail  till  the  sea  dries  up,  till  the  clouds  are 
gone,  till  the  universe  burns.  "  Love  never  faileth."  Whenever 
I  get  a  hint  of  this,  I  lift  it  up  and  transfer  it  to  the  character 
of  God,  and  say,  "Is  that  then  a  conception  of  the  divine  love  and 
mercy  of  Jesus  Christ?  Is  that  redeeming  love?  Is  that  the 
thought  of  the  grandeur  of  which  we  get  a  hint,  a  suggestion  from 
our  experience  among  men,  lifted  up  into  the  infinite  sphere,  and 
made  majestic  as  God  himself?" 

The  tommu7iion  of  the  Jloly  Ghost;  the  indxcelling  of  God; 
havinff  loved  his  own,  he  loved  them  unto  the^nd  /  cohere  I  am^ 


EO W  TO  LEAEN  ABOUT  G OD.  6 5 

there  ye  may  be  also — those  soul-caressing  words  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  are  in  the  literature  of  love  without  a  parallel,  and  must 
always  be.  I  cherish  all  those  moments  in  which  I  am  conscious 
of  the  most  heroic  and  worshipful  love  to  those  who  are  as  near  and 
dear  to  me  as  life.  I  sew  them  with  golden  thoughts  to  me.  I 
weave  my  life  into  theirs.  I  am  strong  because  of  them.  I  should 
be  weak  without  them. 

What  the  inspiration  of  music  is  in  the  household,  that  is  love 
in  the  economy  of  the  soul.  I  know  what  the  bright  days  and  the 
golden  hours  of  love  are.  "When,  therefore,  Christ  says  that  he 
loves,  I  take  the  most  exquisite,  the  sweetest,  the  most  refined  and 
delicate  sentiment  of  love  that  I  have  seen  or  felt  or  dreamed  of,  and 
I  say,  "  All  this  is  but  the  beginning  of  that  love  which  goes  on 
in  the  divine  nature,  pulsing  through  the  universe,  lasting 
forever  and  forever,  and  which  will  round  out  the  future,  redeeming 
the  race.  So  I  get  a  conception  of  the  royalty  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus  which  puts  me  in  sympathy  with  the  apostle  when  he  speaks 
of  the  length  and  breadth  and  height  and  depth  of  the  love  of 
Christ  which  passes  knowledge — intellectual  knowledge. 

Suppose,  then,  that  you  have  built  up  in  your  mind,  by  some 
such  process  as  this,  a  personal  God — a  God  of  your  own — who  fills 
the  heaven  with  the  best  things  you  can  conceive  of,  to  which  you 
are  perpetually  adding  from  the  stores  of  your  daily  experience — for 
it  seems  to  me  that  God  is  a  name  which  becomes  more  and  more  by 
reason  of  the  things  which  you  add  to  it.  Every  element,  every 
combination  of  elements,  every  development  which  carries  with  it  a 
sweeter  inspiration  than  it  has  been  your  wont  to  experience,  you 
put  inside  of  that  name ;  and  you  call  it  God.  You  are  forever 
gathering  up  the  choicest  and  most  beautiful  phases  of  human  life; 
and  with  these  you  build  your  God.  And  then  you  have  a  living 
God  adapted  to  your  consciousness  and  personality, 

Xow,  let  me  ask  you — for  I  come  back  to  my  text  (a  sermon 
should  always  have  a  text  at  one  end  or  the  other,  and  this  sermon 
has  one  at  the  last  end) — let  me  ask  you  whether  it  is  not  a  good 
text  to  stand  on  : 

"  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  let  not  the  wise  man  glory  in  his  wisdom." 
A  man  who  has  D.D.  or  LL.D  to  his  name;  a  man  who  bears 
the  title,  F.R.S.  or  Ph.D.,  is  apt  to  glory  in  his  Avisdom.  Why,  he 
is  a  savant/  He  is  a  philosopher!  He  is  world-renowned!  If 
he  take  a  ship  to  go  abroad  the  papers  proclaim  it,  and  tidings 
of  his  approach  reach  the  foreign  shore  before  he  does ;  and  when 
he  lands,  the  people  in  the  street  look  at  him — for  there  is  a  world 
of  impertinent  curiosity ;  and  they  point  him  out,  and  say,  "  Do 


6Q  HOW  TO  LEABN  ABOUT  GOD. 

yon  know  "who  that  is?"    He  is  bathed  in  people's  observation. 
Does  not  a  man  rejoice  in  that  ?    A  great  many  do. 

"Neither  let  the  mighty  man  glory  in  his  might." 

"  Who  can  touch  me  ?  I  do  not  owe  anybody.  The  law  cannot 
touch  me.  I  have  committed  no  offense.  I  have  a  vast  estate. 
There  are  no  bounds  to  my  resources.  I  have  the  presidency  of  that 
great  corporation.  I  am  one  of  its  chief  managers.  I  can  just  touch 
one  of  these  springs,  and  control  the  whole  State,  and  all  the  party." 
A  man  takes  the  paper  in  the  morning,  and  reads,  and  strokes  his 
beard,  and  says  to  himself,  "  Grand  things  stand  where  I  stand.  I 
wield  a  mighty  power.  I  rejoice  to  think  that  I  am  such  a  strong 
man."    A  great  many  men  do  rejoice  in  their  might. 

"Let  not  the  rich  man  glory  in  his  riches." 
If  that  were  obeyed,  it  would  upset  New  York  in  one  twenty-four 
hours.  A  rich  man  not  glory  in  his  riches  !  A  rich  man  not  hang 
all  the  insignia  of  vanity  on  the  outside  of  his  house  so  as  to  make 
everybody  stop  before  it  and  exclaim,  "  Who  lives  there  ?"  A  rich 
man  not  fill  the  inside  of  his  house  full  of  everything  that  is  costly 
and  beautiful,  so  that  when  a  person  comes  in,  at  every  step  some- 
thing shall  say  to  him,  "  You  must  stop  and  look  at  me  "  !  A  rich 
man  not'  surround  himself  with  all  those  things  which  gratify  his 
vanity  !  A  rich  man  not  rejoice  in  his  riches  !  A  man  be  so  rich 
that  he  is  able  to  throw  out  money  by  the  handful  and  never  miss 
it ;  a  man  have  riches  that  come  in  as  tides  do  along  the  whole  line 
of  the  sea,  and  not  rejoice  in  it  !  A  man  be  rich,  and  not  feel  con- 
tempt for  poor  folks !  A  man  walk  with  the  consciousness  that  there 
are  only  three  men  in  the  nation  who  can  begin  to  compare  with 
him  in  wealth,  and  not  rejoice  in  his  riches ! 

It  is  right  for  a  man  in  a  subordinate  way  to  rejoice,  if  he  be 
wise — although  there  are  some  very  hard  things  said  of  men  who 
are  wise  in  their  own  conceit.  It  may  not  be  wrong  for  a  man  in  a 
subordinate  way  to  rejoice  in  his  might.  If  a  man  is  six  feet  high, 
he  cannot,  for  the  sake  of  humanity,  think  that  he  is  only  three  feet. 
If  a  man  has  the  power  of  creating  and  combining  and  managing, 
he  cannot  help  knowing  it.  You  might  as  well  expect  that  a  white 
man  would  not  think  that  he  was  white.  A  mighty  man  may  re- 
cognize his  might;  but  there  is  something  higher  than  might. 
There  is  something  higher  than  wisdom.  A  rich  man  has  a  right  to 
recognize  the  blessings  of  wealth — for  wealth  brings  great  blessings 
with  it  to  those  who  know  how  to  temper  prosperity  Avith  manliness. 
A  man  has  a  right  to  rejoice,  especially,  when  his  wealth  represents, 
not  craft  and  cunning,  but  patient  industry  long  continued,  and 
the  wise  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end.      Some  men  who  are  rich 


EO W  TO  LEABN  ABOUT  G OD.  6 7 

have  a  right  to  say,  "  When  I  came  to  New  York  I  did  not  own  a 
dollar  ;  but  now  I  own  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  ;  and  there  is 
not  a  dollar  of  it  that  ever  caused  a  man  to  shed  a  tear.  There  is  not 
a  dollar  of  it  that  can  rise  up  in  the  judgment  day  and  say  to  me, 
*  You  stained  me  with  dishonesty.' "  Such  a  man  has  a  right  to  feel 
some  pride  in  his  riches — especially  if  he  administers  them  so  as 
that  they  will  develop  in  him  something  higher. 

Now  and  then  we  are  brought  to  the  edge  of  the  great  invisible 
realm,  and  then  we  are  made  to  feel  that  we  need  something  besides 
wisdom,  something  besides  might,  and  something  besides  riches. 
When  a  man  lies  sick  in  his  house,  feeling  that  all  the  world  is  going 
away  from  him,  what  can  riches  do  for  him  ?  It  can  be  of  but  little 
service  to  him  then. 

When  a  man  is  fifty  years  of  age,  and  he  has  large  estates,  and 
a  high  reputation  as  a  citizen,  if  he  is  going  to  leave  the  world, 
what  can  his  wealth  do  for  him  ?  If  he  knows  that  he  is  going 
fast  toward  the  great  invisible  sphere,  does  he  not  need  something 
to  hold  him  up  when  the  visible  shall  have  broken  down  in  this 
life  ?  In  lonely,  friendless  hours ;  in  hours  of  sadness ;  in  hours 
when  we  have  a  consciousness  of  our  fallibility  and  of  our  failings ; 
in  hours  of  fear  and  remorse ;  in  hours  when  some  beloved  one 
goes  from  us  whose  going  is  to  us  like  the  going  of  an  angel ;  in 
hours  when  the  cradle  stands  empty,  and  when  the  house,  that  used 
to  be  vexed  with  too  much  noise,  is  too  still — a  world  too  still ;  in 
hours  when  those  on  whom  we  had  put  our  pride,  and  the  horo- 
scope of  whose  prosperity  we  proudly  had  drawn,  are  cast  down, 
and,  as  in  a  moment,  the  stay  and  hope  of  our  life  is  gone — in  such 
hours  what  is  there  in  riches  that  can  afford  relief  ? 

The  great  emergencies  of  your  life  make  it  needful  that  you 
should  have  something  more  than  wisdom  and  riches  and  skill  and 
strength.  You  need  a  God.  You  need  to  believe  that  there  is  a 
providence  that  takes  care  of  things,  and  that  you  are  included  in 
it.  You  need  to  believe  that  over  against  fate  and  crime  and  ne- 
cessity there  is  a  God  who  has  a  loving  heart.  You  need  to  have 
such  personal  communion  with  him  that  you  can  say,  "  Whom  shall 
I  have  but  thee  ?  Whom  shall  I  desire  beside  thee  ?  Thou  art  the 
chiefest  among  ten  thousand,  and  the  one  altogether  lovely."  You 
need  something  stronger  than  wealth,  wiser  than  philosophy, 
sweeter  than  human  love,  mightier  than  time  and  nature  :  you  need 
God.  For  when  flesh  and  heart  fail,  then  he  is  the  strengtli  of  our 
soul,  and  our  salvation  forever. 

Brethren,  I  ask  not  whether  your  thought  of  God  is  of  this  or 


68  HOW  TO  LEABN  ABOUT  GOB. 

that  school  of  theology.  What  I  ask  is  this :  Does  it  lift  you  up 
in  trouble  ?  Does  it  purify  your  soul  ?  Does  it  comfort  you  in  be- 
reavement? Does  it  carry  you  through  temptations,  blameless  ? 
Does  it  make  death  itself  seem  to  you  as  the  very  pearly  gate  of 
heaven  ?  Is  your  thought  of  God  yours  ?  and  can  you  say  to  him, 
"  Thou  art  my  God"  ?  If  so,  then  you  have  what  the  world  cannot 
take  away  from  you;  and  you  are  more  blessed  than  any  outward 
fortune  can  make  you ;  but  if  you  are  without  God  and  without 
hope  in  the  world,  what  will  you  do  in  trouble  ?  What  will  you  do 
in  sickness  ?  "What  will  you  do  in  death  ?  How  will  you  go  into 
the  unknown  future  unacquainted  with  its  language,  without  knowl- 
edge of  its  Governor,  a  stranger  ? 

I  bring  to  you  the  disclosure  of  God  in  his  "Word.  But  it  is  to 
be  brought  into  your  experience.  Glory  not  in  your  outward  life  or 
home-life.  Glory  not  in  any  other  life  than  this :  that  you  know 
God,  and  that  you  know  him  to  be  a  God  of  loving  kindness  and 
tender  mercy. 


EO  W  TO  LEABN  ABO  UT  GOD.  69 

PEAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMOIS-. 

What  can  we  bring  to  thee,  O  Most  High,  in  whom  we  live,  and  move 
and  have  our  being?  What  thought  is  there  that  is  not  overmastered  by 
the  grandeur  of  thy  conception  ?  What  feeling  have  we  which  is  not  lost  in 
the  flood  of  thy  nature  ?  Where  can  our  imagination  kindle  any  brightness 
that  is  not  as  darkness  compared  with  the  light  of  thy  face  ?  Only  in  loving 
thee  can  we  praise  thee.  Only  in  those  ecstasies  which  love  begets  is  there 
pleasure  in  the  ascriptions  which  we  bring.  We  cannot  praise  thee  by  de- 
scribing thee;  for  we  do  not  understand  thee.  We  can  take  no  measure  of 
thy  being.  Though  thou  art  like  unto  us  in  many  things,  yet  in  many  more 
thou  art  so  large,  so  transcendent  beyond  anything  to  which  we  have  yet 
attained,  that  we  have  unsaid  the  chiefest  things,  and  thy  brightest  glory  ia 
yet  unexpressed. 

But  thou  art  a  Father.  Now  we  know  the  way.  Now  we  have  some 
conception  and  measure.  What  is  it  that  makes  our  little  children  dear, 
that  are  so  far  below  us?  Their  love  is  the  sweetest  gift  which  they  can 
bring.  Nothing  that  their  hands  can  take,  nothing  that  their  minds  can 
fashion,  is  so  precious  as  that.  But  when  they  draw  near  to  us  with  the  im- 
pulse of  love,  and  yield  themselves  to  us  with  joy  and  gladness,  though  we 
think  more  than  they  can  think,  though  we  are  wiser  and  stronger  than 
they  are,  though  in  every  way  we  are  above  them,  we  recognize  them,  and 
draw  them  near  to  us.  And  so  thou  art  pleased  to  take  the  little  ones. 
Thou  art  One  whose  heart,  alive  to  all  that  is  good  in  our  least  estate,  is 
sending  thy  thoughts  forth  as  the  dews  go  forth  by  night,  and  as  the  rains 
and  sunlight  go  forth  by  day,  and  art  nourishmg  in  all,  all  that  is  good.  It 
is  by  the  power  and  strength  of  goodness  in  thee  that  evil  is  repelled.  It  is 
by  the  goodness  in  us  which  thou  dost  rear  up  and  strengthen,  that  we  are 
able  to  overcome  easily  besetting  sins,  and  to  maintain  ourselves  as  the  sons 
of  God.  Nor  art  thou  cruel  when  we  transgress  thy  law,  and  thou  dost 
chastise  us ;  for,  whom  the  Lord  lo  veth  he  chasteneth ,  and  scourgeth  every  son 
whom  he  recieveth.  We  accept  all  the  penalty,  and  all  the  pain,  and  all  the 
disappointment,  and  all  the  suffering  of  life,  not  as  a  measure  of  divine 
anger,  not  as  the  stem  decree  of  relentless  fate;  we  accept  them  as  the  dis- 
cipline of  a  God  of  love,  who,  by  the  wisdom  and  power  of  love,  will  yet 
nourish  unto  perfection  all  his  household.  We  submit  om-selves  to  thine 
hand,  and  accept  the  chastisement  which  thou  dost  lay  upon  us,  praying 
only  that  as  our  day  is,  our  strength  may  be  also ;  praying  that  we  may  have 
light  to  discern,  faith  to  believe,  and  strength  to  walk  in  the  right  way. 

We  pray,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  will  grant  more  and  more  perfect 
communion  between  thyself  and  us.  May  we  understand  thee  better  by 
living  better  ourselves;  and  out  of  the  experiences  of  our  advanced  life 
may  we  be  able  to  see  more  perfectly  the  glory  and  the  beauty  which  are  in 
thee.  So  draw  us  near  thyself  through  better  living  from  day  to  day,  teach- 
ing us  how  to  fend  off  temptations ;  teaching  us  how  to  eradicate  evils,  to 
repent  of  sins,  and  to  forsake  them ;  teaching  us  how  to  be  built  up  in  holi- 
ness and  true  godliness  unto  the  end. 

Look  graciously,  O  thou  Spirit  of  all  mercy  and  goodness,  Jesus,  beloved, 
upon  all  that  are  in  thy  presence;  and  accept  at  their  hands,  this  morning, 
the  offerings  which  they  bring.  Look  not  upon  the  poorness,  nor  the 
slenderness  of  their  gifts,  but  only  upon  their  need  and  upon  thine  own 
riches.  Art  thou  not  one  who  is  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our  infirmities? 
Is  not  our  poverty,  and  all  our  wants,  whether  of  body  or  of  spirit,  affecting 
to  thee  ?  Be  gracious,  then,  to  every  one,  and  teach  him  to  cast  his  care 
upon  the  Lord,  who  cares  for  him. 

If  any  have  come  up  hither  clouded  with  evil  thoughts,  or  trouble  of 


70  ROW  TO  LEAEN  ABOUT  GOD. 

mind,  thou  that  dost  by  the  wind  drive  storms  out  of  the  hep.Ten,  shirw?  again 
royally  in  us.  Canst  thou  not  by  the  breath  of  thy  Spirit  drive  all  evii 
thoughts  and  all  suggestions  of  sadness  away  from  us  ?  If  there  are  any  who 
are  disquieted  with  fear  and  apprehensions  of  the  future,  canst  thou  not  say, 
"  I  am  the  God  of  the  past,  and  of  the  present,  and  of  the  future  "  ?  Yester- 
day, to-day,  and  forever,  thou  art  the  same.  Thou  art  the  same  in  justice, 
in  purity,  in  truth,  and  in  love.    In  thee  may  we  trust. 

Are  there  those  who  are  in  great  affliction ;  whose  memories  are  full  of 
poignant  suffering?  May  the  Lord  be  very  near  to  them!  Thou  that  didst 
comfort  the  sisters;  thou  that  didst  console  the  mourners;  thou  that  didst 
call  all  the  weary  and  heavy-laden  to  come  unto  thee,  hast  thou  forgotten 
the  divine  art  and  skill  of  healing  wounded  hearts  ?  We  commend  to  thee 
tliiue  own  elect  sufferers,  marked  of  thee  as  thine  own  by  that  which  they 
suffer ;  and  we  pray  that  as  from  the  crushing  of  the  grape  comes  wine,  so 
out  of  their  distresses  there  may  flow  forth  that  treasure  of  soul  and  of  spirit 
which  shall  be  unspeakable  and  inestimable. 

We  beseech  of  thee  to  work  in  every  one  inward  riches,  and  inward 
strength.  May  our  riches  consist,  not  of  that  which  the  hands  have  builded, 
but  of  that  which  God's  thoughts  and  influences  have  reared  up  within  us. 

We  pray  for  all  those  who  are  contesting  in  hfe,  discharging  their  duties, 
carrying  the  burden,  bearing  the  heat  of  the  day,  that  they  may  be  strong 
and  valiant  for  that  which  is  right,  and  evermore  seek  to  promote  the  Gos- 
pel of  Christ  by  raising  up  that  which  is  truer  and  truer,  and  higher  and 
higher  in  the  practice  of  men.  Increase  in  all  a  sense  of  thy  providence — of 
its  personality;  of  its  mightiness ;  of  its  particularity  to  their  thought  and 
feeling  and  necessity,  so  that  every  one  may  walk  bathed  in  an  atmosphere 
of  divine  love. 

Draw  near  to  all  who  are  mourning  over  sin  and  temptation ;  all  who 
have  wandered;  all  who  have  fallen;  and  all  who  are  discouraged  when 
they  look  at  goodness,  to  see  how  high  it  is,  and  how  far  beyond  their 
reach.  Look  upon  those  who  would  be  good,  but  are  periled  by  tempta'tion 
and  overborne  by  a  strength  mightier  than  their  own.  We  pray  that  thou 
wilt  rescue  them,  and  bring  them  back  with  joy  and  salvation. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  draw  near  to  all  those  whose  thoughts 
wander  away  after  their  beloved.  Comfort  parents  whose  children  are  not 
doing  well.  Accept  the  gratitude  of  those  whose  children  are  an  honor  and 
a  joy  to  them.  Hear  those  who  come  this  moi-ning,  after  sickness  or  absence, 
to  render  thanks  to  God  in  the  midst  of  his  people.  May  their  hearts  know 
how,  as  flowers,  to  send  out  fragrance  and  exhale  gratitude  before  thee. 

Be  near,  we  beseech  of  thee  to  all  those  who  are  separated  from  those 
best  beloved.  May  they  have  some  sense  that  their  absent  ones  are  under 
the  care  of  their  Father.  May  they  also  have  some  sense  of  that  rest  which 
remaineth  for  the  people  of  God.  What  matters  it  what  trial  we  have  laid 
upon  us,  or  what  separations  we  are  called  to  endure,  if  we  are  going  to  a 
land  where  there  shall  be  no  more  toil  and  no  more  separations? 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  draw  near  to  any  who  hunger  and 
thirst  after  righteousness;  to  any  who  yearn  and  are  not  satisfied;  to  any 
who  from  day  to  day  desire  to  enjoy  more  intimate  communion  with  thee, 
and  to  be  more  mighty  in  things  which  are  good.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt 
fulfill  thy  promises  to  all  such. 

We  pray  for  those  who  never  pray  for  themselves.  We  pray  for  those 
whose  parents  are  with  thee,  and  who  are  far  removed  from  the  purity  and 
the  ti-uth  of  their  youth.  We  pray  for  the  outcast;  for  those  whom  men 
forget ;  for  those  who  are  trodden  down  and  abused ;  for  those  whom  seK- 
ishness  and  pride  rob;  for  those  who  are  weighed  down  by  sorrow  and 
Bhame  and  degradation. 


MOW  TO  LEARW  ABOUT  GOD.  71 

O  Lord  our  God,  help  us  to  cling  to  our  faith  in  thy  fatherhood.  Thou 
art  good,  and  not  evil.  And  yet,  what  means  the  suffering  of  men  ?  The 
whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  yet.  Look  upon  the  nations. 
See  their  darkness  and  their  distress.  O  come,  if  thou  art  the  Redeemer  of 
the  world,  to  rescue  the  race,  to  lift  up  the  poor  and  the  degraded,  to 
banish  ignoranc^e,  and  to  bring  in  that  light  which  shall  expurgate  all  the 
woiks  of  dai'kness  throughout  the  globe.  Lift  the  light  of  thy  countenance 
upon  the  struggling  peoples  of  the  earth.  And  may  the  day  speedily  come 
when  wars  shall  be  known  no  more,  when  oppression  shall  be  forgotten, 
and  when  all  the  earth  shall  rejoice  in  common  praise,  and  in  the  love  and 
unity  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

We  commend  to  thee  thy  servant  who  ministers  in  holy  things  in  this 
place,  and  all  those  who  are  gi'ouped  together  ^vith  him  in  the  sacj'ed  woik 
which  they  have  in  hand.  We  thank  thee  for  the  prosperity  which  thou 
hast  vouchsafed  to  thy  servant.  May  he  be  made  mighty  in  the  Scripture 
and  niighter  in  the  experience  of  his  own  heart.  May  he  have  the  hearts  of 
this  people;  and  may  he  be  able  to  sow  with  good  husbandry  seed  that 
shall  spring  up  and  bear  fruit  in  holy  living.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless 
him  in  his  household,  and  in  this  place.  Prosper  him  in  his  labors  among 
this  people  where  they  shall  seek  to  establish  themselves  a  home.  There 
abide  with  him.  And  from  his  ministrations  may  multitudes  arise,  in  the 
last  day,  to  call  him  blessed. 

We  ]iray  that  thou  wilt  look  upon  -all  sister  churches  of  every  name,, 
Unite  thy  people.  May  they  have  more  patience,  more  gentleness,  more 
charity,  toward  each  other.  And  grant  that  at  last  all  the  earth  may  see 
thy  salvation. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore. 
Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

O  Lord,  we  thank  thee  that  thou  art  in  the  heaven  transcendently  more 
glorious  than  any  human  imagination  can  understand.  By  searching  we 
cannot  find  thee  out,  nor  understand  the  Almighty  unto  perfection.  And 
yet,  we  know  that  our  mistakes  will  be  in  not  making  thee  glorious  enough. 
The  depth  of  thy  love,  the  power  of  thy  sympathy,  the  sweetness  of  thy 
patience,  the  greatness  of  thy  forgiving  mercy,  none  can  understand.  Not 
until  we  are  transferred,  not  until  we  ourselves  are  made  better  and  larger, 
can  we  have,  in  any  adequate  measure,  the  conception  of  our  God. 

Grant,  then,  that  we  may  grow  in  grace,  and  so  in  the  knowledge  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  until  by  and  by  it  shall  dawn,  and  we, 
emancipated  from  the  flesh,  become  the  children  of  God  in  very  deed,  to 
know  as  we  are  known. 

Vouchsafe  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  this  flock.  Again  we  hold  up  before 
thee,  for  thy  supremest  care  and  blessing,  thy  servant,  their  pastor,  praying 
that  thou  wilt  guide  his  feet  safely,  and  that  by  and  by,  when  his  work  on 
earth  shall  be  accomplished,  he  may  be  greeted  at  heaven's  gate  by  hun- 
dreds that  have  been  sent  thither  by  his  preaching,  and  saved. 

May  we  all  find  the  city,  and  find  the  gate  wide  open.  May  we  all  find  a 
multitude  waiting  for  us.  May  we  find  that  out  names  are  known  there, 
and  that  we  are  saved.  And,  desired  and  drawn  by  the  everlasting  tide  of 
love,  may  we  run  into  the  harbor,  out  of  which  none  shall  go  again,  and 
where  no  storms  shall  fall. 

We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  and  Saviour.    Amen. 


T. 

The  Church  of  the  Future. 


invocation/ 

Our  Father,  up  through  all  our  cares,  in  spite  of  our  burdens,  through 
the  darkuess  and  the  night,  through  the  storm,  through  doubts,  through 
fears,  through  sorrows,  we  press  our  way  toward  thee.  For  thou  art  our 
refuge.  Thou  art  our  fathers'  God,  and  our  God,  and  our  only  hope.  Vouch- 
safe to  us,  this  morning,  then,  some  sense  of  thy  x^resence,  that  in  our  weak- 
ness we  make  take  hold  of  everlasting  strength,  and  help  ourselves  by  God's 
power.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  unto  us,  this  morning,  that  we  may 
worship  together  in  fellowship,  in  blessing,  m  peace,  in  gladness,  in  honor 
Grant  that  the  kingdom  of  God  may  be  within  us  to-day.  Vouch- 
safe, we  pray  thee,  thy  help,  that  every  service  of  the  sanctuary  may  be 
blessed  and  guided  from  above.  Help  us  to  speak,  and  thy  people  to  hear. 
May  we  all  rejoice  in  the  service  of  song.  May  we  easily  find  our  way  to  thy 
throne  in  prayer.  May  every  exercise  please  thee.  We  ask  it  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord.  Amen. 
5. 


/ 


THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 


"  Our  fathers  worshiped  in  this  mountain ;  and  ye  say,  that  in  Jerusa- 
lem is  the  place  where  men  ought  to  worship.  Jesus  saith  unto  her,  Wo- 
man, believe  me,  the  hour  cometh  when  ye  shall  neither  in  this  mountain 
nor  yet  at  Jerusalem,  worship  the  Father.  Ye  worship  ye  know  not  what : 
we  know  what  we  worship;  for  salvation  is  of  the  Jews.  But  the  hovir 
cometh,  and  now  is,  when  the  true  worshipers  shall  worship  the  Father  in 
spirit  and  in  truth;  for  the  Father  seeketh  such  to  worship  him.  God  is 
a  Spirit;  and  they  that  worship  him  must  worship  him  in  epirit  and  in 
truth."— John  iv.,  20-29. 


This,  I  think,  is  the  earliest  attempt  to  point  out  that  which 
has  excited  in  our  day  a  great  deal  of  discussion,  and  a  great  deal 
more  of  curiosity — namely,  what  is  called  the  Church  of  the  Future. 
Our  Saviour,  Jesus,  is  here  holding  high  discourse  with  a  Samari- 
tan woman ;  and  the  theme,  although  ranging  over  wider  ground, 
here  touches  the  particular  topic,  What  is  to  be  the  future  of  re- 
ligious worship  ? 

The  Jewish  idea  of  the  church  of  the  future  we  are  not  ignorant 
of.  It  was  supposed  by  the  Jews  to  be  a  church  having  a  definite 
external  organization,  and  therefore  was  called  a  historic  church.  It 
was  believed  by  them  that  this  church  would  extend  itself  by  means 
of  its  external  organization  until  it  included  within  its  bounds  the 
populations  of  the  whole  globe.  They  did  not  understand  that  all 
the  nations  foreign  to  them  were  to  remain  in  their  own  nationality, 
and  adopt  simply  the  moral  principles  which  were  inculcated  by  the 
Jewish  teaching.  On  the  contrary,  they  believed  that  they  sliould 
literally  bow  themselves  down  and  become  disciples  of  the  Jews, 
and  be  received  by  adoption  into  the  Jewish  church,  so  that  in  the 
end  all  the  people  on  the  globe  should  be  members  of  the  Jewish 
economy,  and  all  the  people  on  the  globe  in  that  economy  should  be 
adopted  Jews. 

It  seems  to  us  very  amusing— the  idea  that  that  handful  of  Jews 
at  the  further  end  of  the  Mediterranean,  with  their  cramped  sys- 

SuNDAY  Morning,  April  7,  1872.     Lesson  :  Luke  XV.    Hymns,  (Plymouth  Collec- 
tion) :  Nos.  LJ8,  877.  597. 


76  THE  CEUBCH  OF  THE  FUTVEE. 

tern,  their  specialties,  their  ordinances,  their  modes  of  worship, 
their  temple-service,  should  be  so  ignorant  of  its  undaptedness 
to  the  qualities  of  men,  to  their  necessities,  to  their  individual  pe- 
culiarities, to  their  race-elements,  as  to  suppose  that  before  the  end 
should  come  everybody  would  hav^  to  be  compressed  into  the  Jewish 
church.  This  seems  very  singular  to  us — or  it  would,  if  we  were  not 
ourselves  under  just  the  same  delusion.  Our  sect — the  sect  to  which 
each  one  of  us  belongs — is  doing  again  what  the  Jews  of  old  did. 
Everybody  believes  in  the  universal  extension  of  the  church. 
Everybody  believes  that  his  denomination  is  to  receive  into  itself  all 
sorts  of  people,  and  that  they  are  to  be  ground  over,  and  remolded, 
into  little  Baptists,  or  little  Methodists,  or  little  Congregationalists, 
or  little  Episcopalians,  or  little  Presbyterians,  or  little  Eoman 
Catholics.  We  think  that  every  man  on  earth  is  to  be  named  after 
our  sect,  just  as  the  Jews  thought  that  every  man  on  earth  was  to 
become  an  adopted  Jew  before  he  died.  What  they  exhibited  was 
nothing  but  a  wide  extension  of  that  conceit  which  by  nature  belongs 
to  us  all. 

.  The  Jews  believed  that  the  temple  in  Jerusalem  would  be  to  all 
races  of  men  in  the  world  the  same  that  it  was  to  them.  They 
believed  that  pilgrimages  would  always  be  made  to  Jerusalem,  and 
that  the  temple- worship  would  remain  to  the  end  of  time.  The 
greatest  shock  which  the  Jews  ever  experienced  was  that  which  was 
caused  by  the  overthrow  of  Jerusalem,  the  temple,  the  altar- 
worship. 

Christ  taught  that  the  time  was  coming,  and  that  it  had  set  in, 
when  worship  should  be  universal.  And  he  taught  that  it  should 
be  untied  from  any  compulsory  externality ;  from  forms,  ordinances, 
conscience-compelling  beliefs.  Not  that  Jesus  declares  that  it  shall 
be  untied  from  forms  and  ordinances  and  beliefs,  but  his  disciples 
understood  it  so.  Paul  taught  that  in  Christ  circumcision  availed 
nothing,  and  that  days,  and  fasts,  and  ceremonies,  and  ordinances 
and  uncircumcision,  were  matters  of  relative  indifference.  He 
did  not  teach  that  there  was  no  need  of  external  instrumentation, 
but  he  taught  that  it  was  subordinate  to  the  spirit.  He  taught  that 
men  were  left  to  their  own  option  in  regard  to  these  things,  and 
that  none  of  them  were  masters  of  others'  consciences.  He  taught 
that  every  man  was  free  before  God,  and  had  a  right  to  take 
good  wherever  he  could  find  it,  under  any  circumstances — in  the 
temple  or  out  of  it ;  in  the  cathedral  or  out  of  it ;  in  the  church  or 
out  of  it.  He  taught  that  men  were  at  liberty  to  accept  religious 
truth,  whatever  form  it  came  in ;  that  man  was  imperially  free 
by  the  edict  of  his  Creator,  and  had  a  right  to  find  his  way  to 


THE  GEUBCn  OF  TEE  FUTURE.  77 

God,  witli  or  without  help,  as  it  seemed  best  to  him.  He  taught 
that  henceforth  there  should  be  universal  liberty  among  men — 
not  to  do  what  they  pleased,  but  to  find  their  way  from  their 
lower  nature  up  to  their  higher,  and  to  take  that  way  which  proved 
to  be  the  easiest  and  best  for  them.  They  were  bound  by  no 
hierarchy.  There  was  no  particular  place  where  they  must  go. 
There  was  no  round  of  services  which  they  must .  observe  whether 
it  did  them  good  or  not.  There  were  no  articles  of  philosophy  to  which 
they  must  subscribe  whether  they  understood  them  or  not.  There 
was  no  externality  which  had  authority  to  say  to  men,  "  You  must 
conform  to  tliis,  or  you  cannot  be  saved."  The  teaching  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  was  this  :  that  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  that  whoever  wor- 
.  ships  him  must  do  it  in  spirit.  It  does  not  make  any  difference, 
when  you  are  worshiping,  if  a  dozen  acolytes  or  priests  swing  the 
censer, — that  does  not  alter  the  fact  of  your  worshiping  or  not  wor- 
shiping. If  you  find  that  by  having  a  ladder  of  form,  by  having 
things  written  in  a  book,  you  can  ascend  better,  there  is  no  objection 
to  your  having  such  a  ladder  ;  but  if  your  neighbor  can  fly,  and 
can  ascend  better  without  a  ladder  than  with  one,  he  has  a  right 
so  to  fly.  The  man  who  worships  God  must  worship  him  in  spirit 
and  in  truth.  There  must  not  be  merely  a  recurring  ritual,  a  set 
of  observances,  something  to  do  at  just  such  a  time,  the  making 
of  genuflexions  in  just  such  a  way,  the  performing  of  some 
perfunctory  duties,  and  calling  that  religion.  God  must  be  worshiped 
in  truth.  There  must  be  a  genuine  glow  of  feeling.  The  heart  must 
be  overflowing  with  love.  We  must  worship  as  the  spirit  worships. 
How  do  I  worship  when  my  heart,  in  the  fullness  of  love,  goes  out 
to  my  mother,  or  to  my  father,  or  to  my  companions  ?  God  calls 
upon  the  human  heart  to  lift  itself  up  to  him  in  tRe  loyalty,  the  en- 
thusiasm, the  zeal  of  love.  Just  such  love  as  we  give  to  each  other, 
purified  and  lifted  upi  immeasurably,  is  that  love  which  God  wants 
from  us,  and  demands.  But  there  is  no  command,  and  there  is  no 
obligation,  as  to  the  way  in  which  it  shall  be  attained.  If  you  can 
come  into  this  state  of  mind  in  one  way  better  than  another,  you  are 
at  liberty  to  do  so ;  and  if  another  man  can  attain  it  in  another 
way,  he  has  a  right  to  his  way.  No  man  can  say,  "  You  must  get  it 
as  I  do." 

Very  soon  the  Christian  church  adopted  the  idea  of  the  Jews — 
namely,  that  the  church  of  God  on  earth  was  not  only  to  be  an 
organic  structure,  but  that  there  was  a  definite,  prescribed, 
exclusive,  and  authoritative  external  form.  That  there  is  a 
definite  organic  structure,  and  that  there  always  will  be,  I 
believe,    just  as  I  believe  that  there  wiU  always  be  a  de/inite 


78  THE  CHUBCH  OF  TEE  FUTURE. 

scliool  for  teaching  young  people  how  to  read.  It  is  not  in- 
dispensable. A  child  may  learn  to  read  without  the  aid  of  his  father 
or  mother,  and  without  the  aid  of  schools.  Many  a  poor  slave  has 
done  it.  Many  men  learn  many  things  without  a  teacher 
or  professor.  Yet  experience  teaches  us  that  intelligence  is  acquired 
more  easily  and  surely  by  means  of  educational  institutions ;  and  we 
say  that  schools  and  academies  and  colleges  will  last  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  But  they  are  not  obligatory  or  authoritative.  Yet  we 
advise  men  to  employ  them  as  the  best  instruments  for  gaining  an 
education. 

The  probability  is  that  men  will  always  journey,  and  that  they 
will  journey  by  highways  and  turnpikes  and  railroads ;  but  if  a  man 
chooses  to  go  across-lots,  he  has  a  right  to  do  it.  No  man  is  bound 
to  go  by  the  railway.  He  may  travel  on  foot,  or  on  horseback,  or  in  a 
wagon,  if  he  prefers  to.  But  probably  there  will  always  be  cars  as 
the  most  expeditious  and  best  means  of  traveling. 

It  is  said,  "  When  you  say  that  churches  are  not  necessary,  you 
disown  the  conditions  of  human  nature."  I  do  not  disown  them  at 
all.  I  suppose  that  to  the  end  of  the  world  there  will  be  definite 
external  organizations — churches,  with  their  methods  and  symbols 
and  ordinances;  but  God  did  not  make  them,  nor  ordain  them, 
in  any  other  sense  than  that  in  which  he  formed  families — civil 
institutions, — science,  literature,  or  anything  else  that  is  founded  in 
human  nature ;  in  any  other  sense  than  that  in  whicli  he 
made  and  ordained  Homer's  poems,  and  Milton's  Paradise  Lost. 
He  made  Homer  and  Milton,  and  caused  the  inspiration  by  which 
they  brought  out  their  poems ;  but  those  poems  were  only  indirectly 
ordained  by  him.  There  is  a  church,  as  I  believe  there  always  will 
be — a  historic  body,  composed  of  groups  of  men  associated  together 
for  purposes  of  worship  ;  but  it  is  purely  and  merely  an  instrument— 
and  from  the  human  side,  too.  There  is  not  a  church  on  the  foce 
of  the  earth  that  has  any  exclusive  divine  stamp  on  it.  God 
has  not  written  his  name  on  any  one  Christian  church  on 
the  globe  more  than  another.  The  church  as  it  is,  is  con- 
structed by  men.  All  things  which  belong  to  it  are  so  Occidental, 
modern,  scholastic,  that  if  you  undertook  to  put  them  into  the  cradle 
where  they  came  from  they  would  not  fit. 

Then  there  are  those  who  feel  that  perhaps  there  may  be  a  little 
too  much  made  of  the  external  forms  of  the  church,  and  who  are 
disposed  to  let  out  the  harness  one  or  two  holes  on  that  subject,  but 
who  say,  "  The  great  doctrines  are  not  going  to  be  changed."  They 
hold  that  there  was  a  definite  deposit  of  absolute  truth,  that  it  was 
committed  to  the  churches,  that  it  is  contained  in  their  printed  sym- 


THE  CEUECH  OF  THE  FUTURE.  79 

bols,   and  that  it  is  going  to  prevail,  without  much  alteration, 
throughout  the  world,  and  clear  doAvn  to  the  end  of  time. 

The  Arian  and  his  school  think  that  Arianism  contains  the 
precious  doctrine ;  the  Arminian  and  his  sect  think  that  Arminian- 
ism  holds  the  precious  doctrine  ;  the  Calvinist  and  those  who  agree 
with  him  think  that  Calvinism  formulates  the  precious  doctrine ; 
and  among  the.  Calvinists,  the  Supralapsarians,  the  Snhlapsarians, 
the  High  Calvinists,  the  Low  Calvinists,  and  Calvinists  of  every  shade 
and  degree,  think,  every  one  of  them,  that  they  have  struck  the 
right  view.  They  do  not  say  that  there  will  not  be  a  little  moditi- 
cation,  some  slight  change,  a  difference  in  the  emphasis  here  and 
there ;  but  they  claim  that  their  distinctive  views  are  to  go  all  over 
the  Avorld. 

Thus  Christians  perceive  the  stumbling-block  of  the  Jews.  They 
perceive  that  the  Jews  did  not  believe  what  was  the  real  truth — 
namely,  that  the  ultimate  church  which  Christ  had  in  his  mind  was 
not  a  mere  organization,  but  the  Eace — Mankind.  They  see  that 
although  out  of  that  race  a  few  who  were  assembled  together  weje 
called  churches,  that  is,  assemblies,  they  were  but  the  first- 
fruits  of  that  which  Christ  was  seeking.  He  said,  "The 
field  is  the  world."  The  world,  the  race,  the  whole  body 
of  mankind,  and  nothing  less  than  that,  was  to  be  Christ's 
church.  We  divide  men  up  into  denominations,  sects,  schools, 
and  so  on ;  but,  after  all,  the  divine  ideal  is,  that  the  church  is  yet  to 
include  all  men,  everywhere,  and  under  all  circumstances.  It  is 
not  meant  to  hold  up  as  specially  divine  this  church  or  that  church, 
this  sect  or  that  sect,  this  denomination  or  that  denomination,  any 
of  the  various  religious  bodies,  or  all  of  them,  but  to  represent  them 
as  so  many  forces  seeking  to  bring  the  whole  human  family  up  into 
spirituality,  and  into  a  knowledge  of  God.  The  human  family,  the 
race,  the  whole  race — that  is  the  divine  conception  of  the  final,  fu- 
ture church ;  and  the  future  church  Avill  not  be  built  until  that  idea 
is  accepted,  and  until  large  strides  are  made  toward  the  accomplish- 
ment of  it. 

The  church  of  the  future  we  may  now  inquire  into  with  some 
light,  I  think,  from  these  views — not  so  much  into  its  definite  and 
exact  affirmations,  as  into  some  of  its  more  general  aspects  and 
conditions. 

1.  The  church  of  the  future  is  to  be  looked  for,  not  m  the  preva- 
lence of  any  single  form  of  worship,  or  any  philosophic  creed, — 
though  both  of  these  will  go  along  subordinately  as  working  forces, 
— but  in  the  condition  of  the  human  race.  It  is  not  to  be  an  or- 
ganized thing,  with  ecclesiastical  lines  thrown  around  about  it ;  or. 


80  TE£!  CEUBCH  OF  THE  FUTUEE. 

if  ecclesiastical  lines  are  thrown  around  about  it,  they  will  be  merely 
auxiliary. 

When  the  careful  cook  compounds  her  material,  and  gathers  on 
her  table  the  flour,  she  puts  it  in  a  pan.  And  the  eggs — they  are 
beaten  up,  and  worked  into  the  flour,  in  the  pan.  And  the  leaven  is 
put  into  the  flour,  in  the  pan.  And  the  sugar  is  worked  in,  in  the 
pan.  And  the  suet  is  worked  up,  in  the  pan.  The  whole  mass  is 
beginning,  now,  to  be  most  tempting  to  the  eye  of  the  child,  who  is 
waiting  to  see  the  raisins  go  in.  And  they  go  in.  All  these  choice 
ingredients  are  in  the  pan,  being  worked  up;  and  the  cook  says, 
''  Now,  my  child,  do  you  see  what  a  precious  pan  that  is  ?  I  have 
heard  people  run  out  against  23ans  /  but  I  tell  you,  there  is  nothing 
like  jDans  in  cooking." 

Well,  is  it  the  pan  or  the  pudding  that  is  precious  ?  The  pan  is 
the  thing  to  mix  it  up  in,  to  be  sure ;  but  is  that  or  the  contents  the 
most  important  thing  ?  I  do  not  suppose  that  to  the  end  of  the 
world  cooks  will  be  able  to  do  their  work  best  without  a  table,  with- 
out pans,  without  dishes,  without  spits  and  skewers,  without  ovens, 
and  a  hundred  other  things  ;  but  it  is  what  is  prepared  by  means  ot 
these  things,  it  is  the  food,  that  is  of  supreme  importance. 

I  do  not  suppose  there  will  ever  be  a  time  before  the  end  of  the 
world  in  which  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  compass  education  by  defin- 
ite institutions  of  various  kinds.  In  the  great  work  of  education 
there  must  be  schools  of  every  sort  for  molding  men ;  but,  after  all, 
these  are  only  instruments.  They  have  no  overt  divine  sanction. 
They  need  none.  They  will  spring  from  men's  natures  and  neces- 
sities.   They  are  safe,  useful  and  normal. 

So,  in  the  course  of  religion,  this  sect  is  but  a  kitchen,  and  that 
sect  is  but  a  kitchen,  where  the  loaf  is  prepared ;  and  the  loaf  is 
mankind.  God  looks  upon  the  Eace.  Men  look  upon  narrow  sects. 
The  ineffable  Anglo-Saxon  race,  which  thinks  it  is  to  be  the  frosting 
of  the  loaf,  or  the  plum  at  the  bottom,  will  be  in,  too,  at  the  final 
baking.  But  I  take  it  that  the  Celtic  race,  the  Eomanic  tribes, 
and  the  Orientals,  will  go  in  as  well. 

Why,  we  are  just  as  conceited  and  arrogant  in  our  day  as  the 
Jews  were  in  their  day.  They  despised  the  Gentiles,  and  we  pity 
but  despise  the  Gentiles.  We  feel  toward  people  outside  of  our 
church  about  as  the  Jews  did  toward  people  outside  of  Jewry. 
Men  out  of  Christendom  are  deemed  outcasts.  If  they  are  in  a 
church  which  we  do  not  regard  as  the  true  church,  we  do  not 
think  them  quite  so  bad.  We  have  not  the  feeling  that  the  heart 
of  God  is  open  to  all  mankind,  in  present  pity,  in  real  tender- 
ness, in  a  true  Providence,  and  that  the   cliurch  is  to  be,  not  a 


THE  CEURCE  OF  THE  FUTURE.  81 

Beet  but  Humanity,  from  horizon  to  horizon,  and  from  pole  to 
pole ;  that  Indians,  Africans,  Ethiopians,  all  men,  barbarous  or 
civilized,  bond  or  free,  high  or  low,  good  or  bad,  belong  to  God's 
great  future  church  which  Avill  not  be  rounded  out  and  completed 
until  they  are  spiritualized.  And  all  the  methods  by  which  you  take 
this  great  heterogeneous  race,  and  lift  it  up  from  its  degradation,  and 
mold  it  from  aninftilisra  into  spirituality,  and  give  it  commerce 
with  God,  and  sympathy  and  communion  with  the  holy  powers 
above,  are  useful  instruments,  but  only  instruments.  They  are 
means,  not  ends.  They  are  not  the  things  for  which  Christ  died  or 
God's  providence  is  reigning.  The  condition  of  the  human  family 
is  the  real  thing. 

Local  churches,  national  churches,  are  but  rills  or  streams  flow- 
ing into  the  Ocean,  until  that  day  shall  come  when  the  "  earth  shall 
be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord  as  the  Avaters  cover  the  sea." 
The  smallest  rill  is  of  use.  The  navigable  river  is  invaluable.  But 
none  of  them,  not  the  Amazon,  is  the  Ocean ! 

Now,  I  believe  that  if  the  Church  of  the  Future  becomes  so  far 
founded  and  built  up  that  men  shall  be  able  to  point  to  it  as  an 
entity,  it  will  be  when  the  whole  human  family  is  developed,  civil- 
ized, Christ-like.    The  Avhole  race  must  advance.     You  cannot  carry 
up  any  nation  to  its  maximum  height  until  you  learn  how  to  carry 
up  too  all  the  nations  that  are  below  it.    You  know  it  was  said  that 
the  prophets  and  the  patriarchs  died  before  they  saw  the  things 
which  were  promised  them,  "that  they  without  us,  should  not  be 
made  perfect."    The  world  is  an  organic  whole.     As  long  as  any 
limb  or  member  suffers,  the  whole  body  will  suffer.    No  civilized 
nation  can  carry  itself  up  above  a  certain  line  without  carrying  up 
all  below  it.     And  God  will  not  permit  a  church,  any  more  than  a 
nation,  to  go  high  up  in  the  scale  toward  perfection  and  leave  every- 
thing else  behind  it.  There  must  be  a  common  preparation  and  organ- 
ization and  economy  by  which  the  whole  race  of  mankind  shall  be 
removed  from  basilar  to  spiritual  conditions.  When  the  whole  human 
family,  of  every  grade  and  color  and  name,  of  every  conceivable  con- 
dition,are  gathered  into  one  substantial  brotherhood,  and  are  severally, 
in  their  own  ways,  beginning  to  live  as  sons  of  God,  then  you  will  have 
the  divine  influence  encircling  the  whole,  and  that  will  be  the 
Church  of  the  Future.     That  church  will  be  no  little  ark  carry, 
ing  forty  persons  across  the   flood,  and  leaving  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  to  drown.     The  church  of  the  future  is  to  be  the  people  of  the 
globe,  all  their  tears  and  sorrows  gone,  with  strong  bodies  in  health, 
in  harmony  with  tlie  laws  of  their  earthly  condition,  in  living 
sympathy  with  invisible  realities,  in   communion  with  God  and 


82  TBI]  CRUECH  OF  TEE  FUTURE. 

angels;  the  wliole  race  lifted  up,  and  all  flesli  seeing  tlic  salvation 
of  the  Lord — that  is  the  chiirch  of  the  future.  "  The  field  is  the 
world,"  said  Jesus.     Even  so ;  amen.     The  field  is  the  vs^orld. 

2.  In  the  great  church  of  the  future  men  will  employ  educating 
institutions  and  doctrinal  forms;  but  such  things  will  fall  out  of  their 
present  idolatrous  position.  Rome,  Canterbuiy,  Geneva,  New 
England,  will  all  alike  be  useful,  and  will  all  alike  be  relative  and 
subordinate.  The  ideal  of  the  church  is  higher  than  that  of  the 
means  by  which  it  is  to  be  compassed.  That  will  be  the  true  way 
of  belief  and  of  worship  and  of  conduct  which  brings  the  individual 
and  the  mass  of  mankind  fastest  and  highest  toward  their  true 
manhood. 

Will  the  Church  of  the  Future  have  a  creed  ?  Of  course  it  will. 
"What  is  a  man  who  has  no  beliefs  ?  What  would  be  the  moral 
worth  of  bodies  of  men  without  any  moral  convictions,  without 
definite  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  of  virtue  and  evil,  of  human  na- 
ture, of  its  relations  to  duty,  of  God,  Providence,  moral  government, 
Death  and  Immortality  ? 

But  it  is  doubtful  if  any  of  the  creeds  which  expressed  men's 
best  thoughts  of  God  and  duty,  at  any  age  foregoing,  will  survive 
the  changes  which  growth  in  knowledge  and  the  evolutions  of  the 
human  race  will  produce.  The  changes  will  be  more  in  form,  pro- 
portion, and  emphasis,  probably,  than  in  the  root-facts,  around 
which  Christian  Creeds  have  clustered. 

Belief  in  the  existence  and  universal  authority  of  a  Personal  God 
will  never  die  out  of  the  world.  The  growth  of  man,  and  the 
evolution  of  society,  will  fill  the  divine  attributes  to  our  conception 
with  qualities  transcendently  nobler  than  our  impoverished  experi- 
ence hitherto  has  set  forth. 

The  moral  government  of  God  will  come  forth  into  a  clearer 
light  by  all  the  researches  which  disclose  the  nature  of  men,  and 
the  laws  of  nature,  and  the  methods  of  improving  and  governing 
mankind. 

The  sinfulness  of  man,  its  nature,  extent  and  consequences,  has 
given  rise  to  endless  debate  and  dissension.  Time  will  only  confirm 
and  illustrate  the  fact,  however  much  philosophy  may  change  the 
theories  about  it.  Much  that  has  been  indiscriminately  called  Sin, 
will  under  clearer  light  be  regarded  as  ignorance,  infirmity,  heredi- 
tary disease,  race-peculiarity,  unskillfulness  in  the  use  of  moral  facul- 
ties, crudeness,  inexperience,  sympathetic  bias ;  but  after  every  discrim. 
ination  and  subtraction,  it  will  be  left  clear  that  mankind  are  also 
sinful  in  a  sense  implying  choice,  and  carrying  with  it  blameworthi- 
ness and  desert  of  penalty.     The  race  is  a  sinful  race  as  well  as  an 


TEE  CHVEOH  OF  THE  FUTVEE.  83 

undeveloped  one,  and  needs  the  divine  interposition  for  its  rescue 
and  regeneration,  and  the  future  church  will  believe  that  fact. 

Nay,  more,  men  are  in  such  a  sense  basilar,  and  so  naturally  at- 
tracted to  the  earth,  that  I  believe  it  will  be  a  part  of  universal  truth, 
that  all  men  need  the  influence  of  tlie  Spirit  of  God  for  inspiration, 
growth,  and  spiritual  perfection.  As  no  flower  can  lift  itself  up, 
but  is  drawn  by  the  light  of  the  sun ;  so  no  soul  will  ever  lift  itself 
up  except  by  the  inspiration  of  the  divine  Spirit.  By  that  inspira- 
tion men  will  be  lifted  into  the  higher  life — will  be  born  again — 
will  be  brought  into  the  spiritual  kingdom,  and  under  abiding 
spiritual  influences. 

That  by  education  under  divine  influences  men  will  rise  to  a 
higher  potency  in  all  their  nature,  is,  I  believe,  a  fact  that  will  be  a 
doctrine  of  the  church  of  the  future. 

'  The  great  doctrine  of  moral  sequences  will,  I  think,  be  a  part 
of  the  belief  of  universal  Christendom  in  the  future.  I  suppose  that 
the  necessity  of  sufiering  for  transgression  is  eternal.  When  millions 
and  millions  of  ages  shall  have  rolled  away,  and  you  are  in  this 
sphere  or  that  sphere,  standing  by  the  throne  of  the  Eternal  or  on 
the  farthest  orb  that  sweeps  through  space,  unaccomplished  in  its 
destiny,  there  will  be  found  one  universal  law — namely,  that  obe- 
dience to  divine  law  expressed  in  man's  nature  will  produce  happi- 
ness, and  that  disobedience  will  produce  misery.  Not  that  every 
disobedience  will  be  eternal  in  its  consequences  to  each  individual ; 
but  the  system  or  constitution  which  makes  obedience  pleasurable 
and  disobedience  painful,  the  system  of  moral  sequences,  which 
teaches  that  the  soul  that  sins  shall  die  and  that  the  soul  that  obeys 
shall  live — that  system  will  go  on  for  ever.  It  is  not  secular,  local 
or  transient  It  belongs  to  the  eternal  order  of  the  universe.  If  all 
that  happens  under  this  great  law  were  painted  in  its  length  and 
breadth;  if  all  its  consequences  could  be  brought  out  and  known 
in  this  world,  if  all  the  efiects  of  secret  diseases,  and  hidden  crimes, 
and  harbored  animosities,  and  moral  transgressions,  in  men,  could 
be  registered  and  disclosed, — there  is  no  monkish  legend  of  penalty, 
no  representation  of  suflering,  that  could  compare  with  them. 

While  we  need  no  further  illustration  of  the  sinfulness  of  man 
and  his  need  of  spiritual  enlightenment  and  susceptibility  to  it,  the 
world  does  need  a  larger  revelation  of  the  restorative  power  of  the 
divine  nature  acting  upon  the  human  soul.  In  this  direction  it  may 
well  be  believed  that  in  the  Church  of  the  Future,  the  vicarious 
suflering  of  Jesus,  illustrated  from  all  the  experiences  of  love  among 
men,  will  grow  to  a  proportion  and  grandeur  never  yet  imagined  ; 
that  the  medicating  power  of  Celestial  Love  upon  the  human  soul 


84  THE  CEUBCE  OF  TEE  FVTUEE, 

will  have  been  disclosed  in  such  radiance  as  shall  fill  the  Tvorld  witli 
the  light  of  redemption  as  from  a  new  sun. 

These  great  truths  are  only  parts,  inflections,  of  the  truths  of 
manhood  itself.  They  are  revealed  to  us  in  the  Bible ;  but  I  be- 
lieve they  would  have  been  found  out  in  the  process  of  time,  even 
without  this  revelation. 

3.  In  the  church  of  the  future,  ordinances  will  be  hints,  helps, 
but  never  authorities.  In  the  light  of  the  sublime  imity  of 
the  human  race  in  the  future ;  in  the  light  of  the  relations  of  men 
to  God  and  to  each  other ;  in  the  light  of  these  great  central  doc- 
trines of  spirituality  in  the  soul — ordinances  of  every  description 
will  be  reduced  to  their  proper  level.  They  are  like  a  child's  clothes. 
Every  child  needs  clothes ;  but  the  clothes  are  not  the  child.  Nor 
is  the  child's  character  determined  by  the  clothes  which  he  wears. 
They  are  like  school  books ;  useful  helps,  but  not  yokes.  * 

There  are  in  different  neighborhoods  different  machines  for 
cutting  grass  and  wheat ;  but  in  estimating  the  value  of  a  man's 
crops  the  question  is  not  whether  he  uses  the  Buckeye  or  the  Clip- 
per, the  Hussey  or  the  McCormick,  or  any  other  machine :  the 
question  is,  "  How  many  tons  of  grass  and  hoAv  many  bushels  of 
wheat  does  he  raise  to  the  acre  ?"  When  you  Avish  to  know  what  a 
man's  success  has  been  in  raising  fruit,  you  do  not  ask  what  style 
of  culture  he  adopted,  or  what  tools  he  used,  but  how  much  his  trees 
yielded.  It  is  the  result,  and  not  the  kind  of  spade  or  hoe  or 
pruning-knife  he  used,  that  determines  what  his  success  has  been. 
"  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

That  is  a  good  ordinance  which  helps  men  to  be  better,  and  that 
is  a  poor  ordinance  which  does  not  help  anybody  to  be  better. 

Men  make  idols  of  ordinances.  They  make  middle  walls  of  par- 
tition of  them.  They  say,  "  I  am  bound,  ecclesiastically,  to  con- 
sider you  not  a  Christian.  I  recognize  your  meekness  and  humility  > 
I  recognize  that  you  are  just  and  sympathetic;  I  believe  that  you 
are  really  a  child  of  God ;  but  still  you  are  not  in  the  regular  order, 
because  you  have  not  been  immersed."  "  Yes,  I  have."  "  Ah, 
well,  you  may  have  been  immersed;  but  the  man  had  not  who  im- 
mersed you."  "  Yes,"  says  another,  "  but  you  do  not  hold  the 
true  doctrine  of  bishops,  and  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  church." 
"Yes,  I  do."  "Ah,  but  you  hold  it  after  the  Anglican  sort,  and 
not  after  the  Eoman."     So  men  go  on  raising  objections. 

I  do  not  seek  to  turn  men  from  sympathy  with  cliurches,  nor 
from  the  use  of  ordinances,  nor  from  any  form  of  administermg 
truth  that  experience  has  shown  to  be  wise  and  useful.  But  is 
it  not  time  that  men  should  learn  that  in  Christianity  the  in- 


TEE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE.  85 

terior  life  and  spirit  were  the  subject  of  divine  command,  and  that 
the  externals  of  religious  associations  were  left  to  be  determined  by 
the  experience  of  Christian  men  ?  The  necessity  of  social  intercom- 
munion in  religious  things  is  the  root  of  the  church,  and  is  as  old 
as  the  creation  of  man.  During  his  whole  life  Christ  was  an  obedi- 
ent member  of  the  Jewish  Church.  We  have  no  record  of  any  plan 
of  anotlier  church.  We  have  the  clearest  evidence  that  his  apostles 
did  not  regard  themselves  as  the  founders  of  a  new  church.  They 
remained  in  the  Jewish  Church.  They  anxiously  cleared  themselves 
from  the  imputation  of  having  departed  from  it.  The  directions 
which  they  gave  to  early  Christians  were  either  to  communities 
where  no  Jewish  organization  had  any  visible  existence,  or  where 
the  disciples,  yet  in  the  Jewish  church,  had  instituted  social 
religious  meetings  of  their  own,  just  as  Wesley's  followers,  during 
all  his  life-time,  were  members  of  the  Church  of  England,  though 
having  a  religious  economy  of  their  own  existing  within  it. 

But  there  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  apostles,  while  distinctly 
recognizing  external  organizations,  helps,  customs,  &c.,  put  them  all 
into  the  place  of  servants.  The  Spirit  of  Christ  set  men  free.  The 
liberty  of  man  in  Christ  Jesus  was  a  theme  of  constant  jubilation. 
"  Stand  fast  therefore  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us 
free."  "In  Jesus  Christ  neither  circumcision  availeth  anything 
nor  uncircumcision,  hut  faith,  that  works  by  loveP 

The  inward  soul  ruled  all  outward  conditions!  «  The  Kingdom 
of  God  is  not  meat  and  drink  (sacrificial  oflFerings — parts  of  temple 
service)  but  righteousness,  and  peace,  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost." 
Manhood  is  the  sovereign  thing.  All  customs  and  usages  that  help 
it  derive  their  authority  from  their  lielpfulness.  If  manhood  exists, 
no  ordinance  can  rise  up  and  command  obedience,  as  if  there  was 
some  mystic  benefit  in  an  ordinance  besides  the  service  Avhich  it 
could  render  to  the  soul ! 

It  is  moral  quality ;  it  is  exalted  manhood ;  it  is  spiritualized 
human  nature  that  religion  seeks  to  produce.  And  that  is  what  we 
are  all  working  for.  We  are  working  for  it  by  schools  and  by 
churches.  Among  churches,  we  are  working  for  it  by  those  that 
are  High,  and  by  those  that  are  Low.  We  are  working  for  it  by 
the  simple  voice  of  the  Book.  We  are  working  for  it  by  the  ordained 

priest  and  by  the  man  who  never  had  a  hand  on  his  head except 

his  mother's.  We  are  working  for  it  as  we  please.  And  it  is  the 
fruit  which  we  produce  that  determines  our  fitness  for  the  work. 
If  you  make  men  better,  you  are  ordained ;  but  if  you  do  not  make 
men  better,  you  are  not  ordained.  The  great  end  rules  the  instru- 
ments, and  is  superior  to  them  all. 


86  TEE  CEUBCH  OF  TEE  FUTUBE. 

4.  In  the  Church  of  the  Future  not  only  may  we  expect  that 
great  light  will  have  been  thrown  upon  the  truths  of  Sacred  Scrip- 
ture, but  that  there  will  be  such  a  reconciliation  between  revealed 
truth  and  the  truth  of  science  that  they  will  coperate  and  harmo- 
nize as  parts  of  a  common  revelation.  It  is  not  possible  that  the 
Bible  and  the  revelations  of  science  should  be  in  antagonism,  and 
yet  both  proceed  from  the  same  God.  If  there  continues  to  be  a 
conflict  between  them  one  or  the  other  must  yield,  and  the  experi- 
ence of  ages  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  which  will  accept  modification  and 
come  into  harmony  by  new  interpretations.  But,  in  the  far  future 
day  it  is  our  hope  that  the  grand  spiritual  truths  of  Holy  Scripture 
will  receive  interpretation  and  confirmation  from  the  revelations 
of  science — no  longer  "falsely  so  called."  Then  the  distinction 
between  secular  and  religious,  sacred  and  profane,  revealed  and 
natural  will  be  much  narrowed  even  if  not  entirely  done  away. 
There  will  be  a  change  in  men's  notions  of  the  comparative  sacred- 
ness  of  truths.  All  truth  proceeding  from  God  will  be  divine  and 
sacred.  The  decrees  of  God  wherever  promulgated  will  be  alike 
sacred.  Truths  will  take  their  rank  not  by  their  method  of  dis- 
covery, nor  by  the  channel  through  which  they  come  to  men,  but 
by  their  relations  to  the  higher  or  lower  nature  of  man,  by  the 
greater  or  less  power  of  exalting  man  to  his  sonship  in  God. 

Truths  once  disclosed,  proved,  and  accredited,  will  thenceforth 
stand  simply  gn  their  own  bases.  A  truth  discovered  by  a  philoso- 
pher will  be  as  true  as  if  spoken  by  an  infallible  prophet.  The 
decrees  of  God  set  forth  by  Natural  Laws  will  be  as  sacred  as  if  they 
had  been  promulgated  from  Sinai.  Nature  and  religion  will  stand 
upon  a  common  level,  not  by  lowering  religion  to  the  plane  of  men's 
former  misconceptions  of  nature,  but  by  lifting  our  conceptions  of 
nature  up  to  the  plane  of  spiritual  and  divine  things.  For  a  long 
time  religious  men  have  regarded  nature  as  a  grand  antagonism  to 
religious  systems.  Human  nature  has  been  contemned,  as  if  the 
misuse  of  normal  faculties  was  man's  true  nature.  They  have  treated 
divine  thoughts  recorded  in  the  material  world  as  if  they  were  not 
only  outside  of  all  revelation,  but  as  if  they  impose  on  men  no  moral 
obligations,  whether  of  faith  or  of  obedience.  By  a  natural  reaction, 
men  are  now  rushing  to  the  other  extreme,  and  doubt  all  truth 
that  claims  to  be  a  revelation  from  God  through  inspired  human 
faculties.  This  cannot  last.  The  final  science  and  the  final  religion 
will  own  brotherhood.  Again  the  heavens  will  declare  the  glory 
of  God,  again  the  earth  will  show  his  handiwork.  When  men  are 
better,  and  better  understood  then  God  will  shine  out  in  clearer 
lines,  and  science  will  be  heard  saying,  "  The  earth  is  the  Lord's, 
and  the  fullness  thereof." 


TUE  CEUECH  OF  TEE  FUTURE.  87 

In  that  clay  teachers  Avill  widen  their  sphere.  Ministers  will 
QO  longer  gather  their  materials  from  a  narrow  and  technical 
theology.  They  will  accept  God's  Word  as  travelers  do  geography 
and  as  sailors  do  their  charts,  not  as  containing  the  things  of  which 
they  speak,  as  if  a  book  were  a  world,  but  as  pointing  them  out, 
describing  them,  and  sending  men  outside  of  the  book  or  chart,  to 
the  thing  signified. 

In  that  day  revelation  will  be  larger,  wider,  and  far  more  nearly 
universal  than  men  have  thought.  Nature  will  no  longer  be 
thought  to  vulgarize  religion,  but  religion  will  have  taught  us  to 
behold  a  sacredness  and  moral  meaning  in  nature  to  which  we  are 
now  mostly  blinded. 

5.  To  many  of  the  views  now  advanced  stout  objections  will 
spring  up. 

It  will  be  asked,  are  not  men  already  little  enough  mindful  of  re- 
ligious institutions  ?  Is  there  any  need  of  divesting  them  of  the 
little  authority  which  remains  ? 

Men  have  cherished  a  kind  of  idolatry  of  forms,  ordinances,  and 
religious  usages.  They  are  now  dispossessed  of  such  superstition. 
It  will  be  vain  to  revamp  the  old  notions.  They  are  fainting  and 
failing.  There  is  but  one  course  to  save  men's  regard  for  religious 
institutions,  and  that  is  to  put  them  upon  grounds  of  reason,  and 
good  use.  If  religious  institutions  are  doing  good  there  can  be  no 
better  reason  than  that  for  maintaining  them.  Men  will  preserve, 
on  rational  and  practical  grounds,  customs  and  usages  which  they 
will  reject  on  grounds  of  authority. 

There  can  be  no  more  pestilent  illusion  than  that  which  leads 
men  to  believe  that  nothing  is  stable  or  safe  which  has  not  a  direct 
authorization  from  God.  How  fairly  grounded  is  the  family,  and 
yet  no  pattern  is  given  for  it !  Civil  government  thrives  and 
renews  itself  after  every  revolution,  not  upon  a  divine  rescript,  but 
upon  that  organic  necessity  divinely  created  in  man  for  society 
and  for  social  order.  -  Schools  are  just  as  successful  in  their  sphere 
as  churches  are  in  theirs,  and  yet  there  is  no  Scripture  charter  for 
common  schools.  The  schoolmaster  does  not  think  it  needful  either 
for  his  authority  or  for  the  perpetuity  of  his  order,  to  trace  back  his 
pedigree  to  some  pedagogical  apostle.  God  is  nearer  to  us  than  the 
apostles  are!  Why  should  men  go  drifting  back  for  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  to  find  the  apostles  when  God  is  right  overhead  ?  There 
can  be  no  better  ground  for  any  ordinance  or  institution  than  its 
usefulness.  If  it  be  needed  no  authority  can  suppress  it.  If  it  bo 
useless  no  authority  can  long  maintain  it,  if  reason  rule  and  super- 
stition is  banished. 


88  THE  CHUBCR  OF  THE  FVTUBE. 

But  will  not  such  a  doctrine  of  liberty  in  all  religious  things 
tend  to  such  individualism  as  will  break  up  all  cohering  activity, 
and  send  men  off  with  centrifugal  force  into  fragmentary  sects,  until 
all  economy  of  force  is  lost,  and  men  lie  as  so  much  unorganized 
sand  on  the  shores  of  time  ?  Has  liberty  then  proved  destructive  to 
unity  and  wise  organization  in  civil  affairs?  in  the  realm  of  intel- 
lectual life,  or  in  the  industrial  affairs  of  men  ? 

What  has  tended  to  create  sects  ?  It  is  the  notion  that  men  have 
had  committed  to  them — a  definite,  divine  plan  of  churcli  order  or  or- 
dinance, or  a  creed  of  absolute  truth,  which  they  and  no  one  else 
possessed,  and  which  it  was  their  solemn  duty  to  propagate  at  all 
hazards.  If  persecution  be  applied  to  them,  like  fire  on  clay,  it 
will  harden  them  into  solid  forms. 

The  moment  that  men  accept  the  truth,  that  it  is  the  spirit  that 
giveth  life,  while  the  letter  killeth,  that  the  one  important  thing  is 
manhood  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  that  any  variety  of  means  and  instru- 
ments may  be  tested  and  employed,  they  will  no  longer  feel  that 
"they  are  the  people,  and  wisdom  shall  die  Avith  them."  Sects 
spring  from  the  false  notion  that  Christ  determined  any  form  of 
church,  any  system  of  church  order,  or  any  systematic  creed,  and 
from  the  religious  conceit  that  each  sect  has  the  exclusive  possession 
of  the  divine  council,  and  is  bound  to  propagate  it ! 

A  true  liberty  in  religion  will  lead  to  order,  concentration  with 
elasticity,  and  harmony  in  infinite  diversity.  Many  men  yearn  for 
this  larger  liberty  and  this  true  catholicity,  but  they  fear  that  it  will 
kad  to  a  decadence  of  religious  fervor,  of  real  faith  in  invisible  and 
divine  things,  that  it  will  send  men  adrift  into  all  vague  and  wild 
speculations,  and  that  the  world  will  be  left  without  churches,  or 
religious  teaching,  and  be  overspread  with  a  clear  but  cold  and  cheer- 
less material  philosophy. 

But  religion  is  not  an  artificial  want,  hanging  on  men  like  a 
parasitic  plant,  beautiful,  but  with  only  mechanical  adhesion  to  the 
bough  from  which  it  swings  and  blossoms.  The  moral  sentiments, 
from  which  all  religion  springs,  are  an  integral  part  of  man's  nature. 
They  may  be  undeveloped,  or  wrongly  developed,  but  extinguished 
they  cannot  be.  Man  craves  a  moral  stimulus  as  really  as  he  does  in- 
tellectual or  social.  He  is  a  worshiping  creature ;  he  bears  deep  within 
him  the  sentiments  of  faith,  of  conscience,  of  benevolence,  of  aspira- 
tion. They  are  as  much  parts  of  his  organic  life  as  intellect  or  do- 
mestic love,  or  self-esteem. 

This  is  the  same  kind  of  fear  that  shuddered  and  prophesied  evil 
when  the  doctrines  of  liberty  were  proclaimed  against  arbitrary 
governments.     Destroy  the  monarch  and  men  will  lose  the  spirit  of 


THE  CEUECH  OF  TEH  FUTURE.  89 

allegiance !  Take  away  the  throne  and  men  will  lose  the  love  of 
country !  Paralyze  the  strong  hand  and  men  will  rush  into  storms 
of  anarchy,  and  civil  institutions  will  founder  in  the  universal 
whirl ! 

But  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  liberty  gives  stability  to  civil 
government,  that  laws  flourish  best  among  a  free  people,  and  that 
the  organization  of  society  is  far  better  attended  to  when  intelli- 
gence and  democratic  liberty  prevail,  than  under  any  other  circum- 
stances. 

In  like  manner  the  need  of  the  soul,  the  hunger  for  the  religious 
element  will  always  secure  sufficient  means  and  ministrations,  if 
men  are  left  free.  Liberty  will  multiply,  not  diminish  churches ; 
it  will  intensify,  not  deaden,  the  spirit  of  fellowship.  Out  of  liberty 
will  spring  infinite  variety  and  versatility,  so  that  the  Church  of 
the  Future,  like  a  garden  of  the  Lord,  will  have  not  one,  but  myriad 
flowers,  each  by  contrast  or  harmony  helping  the  others.  One  tree 
of  life,  but  "  twelve  manners  of  fruits." 

But  did  not  the  inspired  writers  speak  of  churches,  and  were 
they  not  under  the  apostles'  authority  and  subject  to  their  direction  ? 
These  churches  were  simply  "  assemblies"  of  believers.  They  were 
groups  of  men  banded  together  for  mutual  help.  To  each  was 
given  such  counsel  as  it  needed.  But,  except  the  great  canons  of 
morality,  and  the  simple  facts  of  Christ's  life,  there  was  no  organiza- 
tion or  usage  common  to  all  alike  Avhich  was  not  subject  to  the 
changes  required  by  national  customs,  to  the  exigencies  of  different 
places,  and  in  short  to  the  laws  of  convenience  and  expediency. 
Church  organization  was  extremely  simple  and  adapted  itself  to 
circumstances  with  plastic  facility,  and  was  as  unlike  the  rigorous 
forms  of  later  days  as  the  old  and  hardened  bark  of  the  hickory 
tree  is  to  the  soft  and  semi-fluid  alburnum  within,  which  is  always 
taking  the  form  of  the  tree  while  it  is  at  the  same  time  changing 
and  augmenting  it ! 

The  great  question  which  concerns  us  all  is  that  of  immortality. 
Am  I  near  the  verge  and  end  of  myself  ?  Am  I  made  to  tick  and 
keep  the  hours  of  this  mortal  sphere  only  ?  When  I  am  done  here, 
shall  I  be  run  down  forever,  never  to  move  again  or  record  the  hours 
of  time  ?  Or  do  I  belong  to  the  horology  of  the  universe  ?  Passing 
through  life,  do  I  enlarge  my  sphere?  Do  I  fit  myself  to  live  more 
nobly,  more  fruitfully,  with  augmented  sweep  of  being?  Is  that 
true?  That  is  the  truth  Avhich  is  pre-eminent,  standing  above 
every  other.  The  problem  is,  how  to  live  here  so  as  to  live  surely 
and  well  there.  And  all  the  truths  whicli  come  to  us  in  this  lower 
sphere,  civilizing  society  and  Christianizing  nations,  are  important 


90  TEE  CHURCH  OF  THE  FUTURE. 

as  lifting  men  up  out  of  vulgarism,  animalism,  bestiality,  selfish- 
ness and  pride,  into  the  serener  latitudes  of  faith  and  love  in  the 
Holy  Ghost.  What  truths  are  good  for  is  to  create  manhood ;  and 
they  are  good  in  proportion  as  they  have  the  power  to  exalt  the  ideui 
of  manhood  and  inspire  its  realization !  Food  is  good,  and  good 
only  in  proportion  as  it  nourishes  the  body.  And  God's  truth  is 
food.  It  is  the  manna  of  God  rained  down  into  this  world.  This 
will  be  recognized  in  the  church  of  the  future. 

When  men  would  discuss  with  you  the  Church  of  the  Future,  tell 
them  that  with  definite  organization  it  will  have  infinite  diversity. 
It  will  not  be  so  much  a  temple,  as  a  city  with  endless  variety  of 
structure,  with  uses  and  ornaments  expressed  in  a  hundred  ways ; 
but  that  in  spirit  it  will  be  one ;  in  creed  one ;  and  that  creed  and 
spirit  will  be,  Love  to  God  and  Love  to  Man  I 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

Thou,  O  God,  art  unsearchable.  Such  is  the  greatness  of  thy  nature,  and 
so  far  doth  it  transcend  all  the  circuits  of  our  thoughts,  and  all  the  lines  ol 
our  experience,  that  no  man  by  searching  can  find  thee  out  or  understand 
the  Almighty  unto  perfection.  Lo  1  these  are  but  parts  of  thy  ways  which 
■we  discern  in  this  sphere.  Not  the  little  round  of  human  life  can  so  mag- 
nify itself  as  to  represent  the  grandeur  and  the  glory  of  that  life  which  is 
the  life  of  life.  Nor  can  we  understand  the  ways  of  God  among  men — not 
even  with  the  light  of  thy  truth  shining  upon  us.  Thou  hast  manifested 
something;  and  yet  the  whole  doth  not  yet  appear.  Thou  hast  made  known 
to  us  what  we  cannot  understand;  but  we  accept  it,  feeling  that  it  goes  out 
beyond  our  reach,  and  is  constantly  eluding  our  thought  and  our  feeling; 
and  we  wait  for  the  revelation  of  that  bright  day  when  we  shall  be  dis- 
abused of  life,  unclothed  as  to  the  flesh,  emancipated  from  earthly  constric- 
tions, and  when  we  shall  be  as  the  angels  of  God,  and  shall  know  as  we  are 
known.  We  know,  O  Lord  our  God,  but  little.  We  know  the  way.  Thou 
art  the  Way,  Jesus.  Thou  art  the  Truth.  Thou  art  the  Life.  What  if  we 
cannot  understand  all  the  teachings  of  holy  men,  we  behold  the  beauty  of 
thy  life.  We  know  what  was  thy  spirit.  We  know  what  was  the  character 
of  thy  ministry.  We  behold  thee  going  everywhere,  familiar  with  the  lowest, 
not  disdaining  the  Mghest,  teaching  on  every  side,  sweet  and  blessed  to  little 
children,  comforting  mothers,  full  of  companionship  for  fathers.  We  be- 
hold tliee  rebuking  things  that  are  evil,  that  thou  mayst  cure  them.  We  be- 
hold thee  standhig  between  the  worst  oppressions  and  the  oppressed— the 
oppressions  of  unjust  thoughts — the  oppressions  of  the  rigorous  and  tyran- 
nical selfishness  of  men  over  their  weaker  brethren.  We  behold  thee  every- 
where breathing  sympathy  and  love  upon  men.  We  behold  thee  making 
the  truths  of  God's  government  shine  brighter  and  brighter  unto  the  end. 
Thou  didst  bow  thine  head;  and  in  the  midst  of  the  great  and  mysterious 
struggles  which  impended  over  thee,  thou  wert  steadfast,  calm,  and  per- 
sistent to  the  last,  in  giving  thy  life  a  ransom  for  many.  All  the  hidden 
things  therein  we  do  not  understand.    We  bring  our  experiences  as  so  many 


THE  GllUItCII  OF  THE  FUTUBE.  91 

lenses  to  magnify  them;  but  alas!  they  are  wrinkled,  and  blurred,  and  dis- 
torted. We  seek  to  know  what  is  hidden  within,  even,  as  of  old,  men 
sought  to  know  the  mystery  of  the  ark,  desiring  to  look  therein;  but  still  it 
is  hidden  Yet  we  know  that  thou  art  Love;  and  we  know  tliat  all  the 
things  which  men  call  terror,  and  j^ain,  and  threat,  and  justice,  and  indlcfna- 
tion,  are  but  so  many  instruments  of  love,  and  that  thou  art  working  in  the 
heaven  and  throughout  the  universe  for  the  kingdom  of  peace,  and  not  for 
the  kingdom  of  destruction.  We  believe  that  the  heart  of  love  gushes  and 
goes  forth  toward  the  realm  of  everlasting  love.  There  art  thou  radiant,  re- 
suming again  in  thy  Father's  presence  the  royalties  of  the  divine  nature. 
But  thou  hast  left  thyself  still  lingering  in  the  earth.  Thou  art  still  a  power 
among  men,  enlightening  the  imagination,  quickening  the  heart,  instructing 
the  understanding.  Thou  art  still  the  Leaven,  and  art  steadily  leavening 
the  whole  lump.  And  the  creation  which  has  wondrously  groaned,  mysteri- 
ously travailed  in  pain,  until  now — what  shall  it  bring  forth  but  the  ampli* 
tude  and  royalty  of  that  kingdom  of  which  thou  wert  thyself  the  Fore- 
runner, the  Founder?  As  thou  hast  been  its  Author,  so  thou  shalt  be  its 
Finisher.    Even  so.  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  we  may  learn  to  follow  thee,  not  by  the  outward 
life,  and  not  by  the  things  which  are  prescribed  in  the  church,  and  not  by 
the  form  of  believing,  but  in  our  innermost  life.  Sanctify  our  remotest 
sympathies,  the  remotest  germs  of  thought  and  feeling,  in  us,  and  wholly 
bring  us  into  the  mood  and  disposition  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 
May  we  have  thy  sympathy  for  men.  May  we  cease  to  bound  our  hearts  by 
the  lines  of  our  households.  May  we  cease  to  look  upon  those  who  are  not 
of  our  nation  or  lineage  as  indifferent.  May  our  hearts  go  out,  as  thine  did, 
yearning  for  the  world.  May  we  be  so  clothed  with  universal  sympathy  that 
all  men  shall  be  brethren,  until  we  shall  feel  that  we  are  brothers  one  with 
another. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  we  may  labor  less  and  less  by  calling  fire  from 
heaven  to  consume  those  who  are  not  in  agreement  with  us.  More  and  more 
may  we  labor  by  showing  mercy  one  for  another.  May  we  suffer  for  others ; 
but  may  we  avoid  causing  them  to  suffer.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  make  us 
wise  in  winning  those  who  are  around  about  ua.  May  the  summer  of  thy 
love  ripen  us. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  look  upon  those  who  are  in  thy  presence,  accord- 
ing to  tlieir  several  circumstances.  Look  upon  those  whose  life  seems  well- 
nigh  spent  in  vain.  Look  upon  those  who  mourn  the  ruggedness  of  the  way ; 
upon  those  who  are  weary  with  their  heavy  burden;  upon  those  who 
scarcely  know  which  way  to  go,  and  who  need  a  guide.  Disclose  thyself  to 
them,  and  say  unto  them,  "Come  unto  me,  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy- 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  May  they  take  thy  yoke  and  thy  burden, 
and  find  rest  to  their  souls. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  draw  near  to  those  who  are  mourning 
the  hidings  of  thy  face,  and  who  feel  that  thou  art  just  in  rebuking  them. 
We  pray  that,  whatever  may  have  been  their  error,  and  whatever  remorse 
they  may  experience,  they  may  not  add  to  their  past  transgression  the 
greater  sin  of  doubting  the  mercy  of  God.  Oh,  that  there  might  be  such  a 
sense  of  God's  great  compassion  and  forgiving  love,  that  every  soul,  how- 
ever beset,  or  tempted,  or  storm-cast,  or  driven,  might  still  find  thee,  and 
rest  in  thee ! 

Draw  near  to  all  those  who  have  experienced  thy  providence  in  an 
afflictive  measure.  Why  should  not  thy  people  suffer,  when  the  Master  suf- 
fered for  them  ?  Are  they  better  than  he  ?  Was  it  needful  that  the  Captain 
of  our  salvation  should  be  made  perfect  through  suffering  ?  and  can  we  be 


92  TJiB  cnuBcn  of  the  future, 

made  perfect  without  it  ?  When  much  of  the  fruit  that  the  trees  bear  is 
wiud-dropped,  and  the  winter  binds  them,  and  the  storm  shalies  them,  and 
all  the  elements  exercise  them,  why  should  we  stand  and  ask  that  our  life 
should  be  forever  calm,  and  that  no  fruit  of  ours  may  fall  untimely  to  the 
ground?  Grant  that  those  who  suffer,  in  thy  providence,  may  feel  that  it 
is  the  Lord  that  hath  done  this  for  good,  and  that  he  saith  to  them,  "  If  ye 
suffer  no  chastisement,  ye  are  not  my  sons." 

Wilt  thou  lift  up  the  hands  that  hang  down,  and  strengthen  the  feeble 
knees,  and  comfort  those  who  need  the  consolations  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  those  who  are  looking  into  the  future, 
or  who  stand  shivering  with  fear,  or  with  despair.  Grant  that  they  may  be 
Saved  by  hope.  Though  fate  seems  against  them;  though  all  their  plans 
seem  to  fall  untimely  and  blighted ;  though  no  friends  are  raised  up  to  en- 
courage and  help  ttiem ;  though  the  things  which  are  against  them  are  more 
and  mightier  than  the  things  which  are  for  them,— may  they  have  faith  in 
God,  and  hear  him  saying  unto  them,  "Cast  your  care  upon  me,  for  I  care 
for  you."  Though  their  father  and  their  mother  have  forsaken  them, 
though  friend  aijd  brother  have  cast  them  out,  though  men  are  averse,  and 
though  the  way  of  life  is  hard  as  a  flint  to  their  feet,  may  they  still  hold  to 
this  most  precious  treasure— faith  in  God  and  his  providence— belief  that 
God  will  do  all  things  well,  and  in  the  end  cause  all  things  to  work  out  tor 
their  eternal  good. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  those  who  are  strangers  in  our  midst. 
Comfort  their  hearts.  If  they  be  in  solitude,  and  if  they  be  homesick,  may 
they  have  such  a  sense  of  the  house  of  God  as  their  home  that  their  spirit 
shall  redeem  their  body.  May  they  feel  that  they  are  with  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  that  they  are  standing  in  the  presence  of  the  heart  of  God  who 
teaches  all  to  love.  And  we  pray  that  their  hearts  which  run  backward 
may  carry  with  them  everywhere  the  blessings  which  they  desire  for 
children,  for  companions,  for  brethren. 

Remember  all  those  whom  we  love,  wide  dispersed  upon  the  sea  or  upon 
the  land.  How  near  they  are  to  thee,  though  tliey  be  far  from  us!  To  thee 
all  things  are  as  in  one  place;  and  how  easy  it  is  for  us  to  commend  our 
children,  and  our  companions,  and  our  friends,  to  the  care  of  our  God  who 
is  everywhere.  Wo  pray  that  this  day  they  may  feel  the  thoughts  of  God 
which  pass  all  understanding.  Be  with  our  dear  brethren  who  may  now  be 
singing  the  hymns  of  the  sanctuary — some  in  the  solitude  of  the  forest, 
some  upon  the  ocean,  and  some  on  distant  shores.  While  we  sing,  may  we 
feel  that  we  sing  with  those  who  are  ours,  and  whose  hearts  are  joined  to 
ours. 

Be  pleased  to  bless  thy  churches  everywhere.  Grant  that  thy  ministers 
may  endeavor  to  do  good  in  preaching  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  We  pray 
for  the  power  of  that  universal  sympathy  and  love  which  shall  unite  all 
churches  and  all  men.  And  so  may  heresy  die,  and  love  grow  strong.  We 
pray,  O  Lord,  that  thou  wilt  build  up  thy  cause,  and  extend  thy  kingdom, 
and  fulfill  the  promises  which  thou  hast  made.  Glorify  thyself  in  bringiu'; 
Jew  and  Gentile— all  the  earth— into  one  family,  blessed  of  God  and  per- 
fected. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  evermore. 
Amen. 


VI. 

Our  Father,  the  King:  Brother- 
hood THE  Kingdom. 


INVOCATION. 

Accept  our  praise,  accept  our  inward  thought,  O  thou  that  dwellest  above 
the  heavens,  and  In  the  light,  and  m  the  very  source  and  center  of  Ught, 
which  thou  thyself  art.  In  thy  sight  are  we  smaller  than  the  drops  of  the 
dew  to  the  sun  that  looks  upon  all  things  in  the  greatness  and  majesty  of  his 
might— upon  the  smallest  and  upon  the  greatest  alike.  Shine  thou.  Eternal 
Sun,  upon  us,  in  our  littleness,  even  as  thou  dost  upon  the  ocean ;  as  thou  dost 
upon  the  mountain,  so  upon  us ;  as  thou  dost  upon  all  that  are  in  heaven,  and 
in  the  wide  domain,  so  upon  us,  in  our  littleness  and  unworthiness ;  and  by 
thine  own  soul's  power,  lift  us  up  into  sympathy  with  thee,  that  we  may  know 
how  to  dare  to  call  ourselves  the  sons  of  God.  Bless  us  in  our  communion, 
in  the  service  of  tlie  sanctuary,  in  reading,  in  listening,  jn  singing  praises  to 
God,  in  prayer,  in  instruction,  in  all  things.  Bless  the  whole  day,  and  make 
it  the  Lord's  day  every  where.  We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.  Amen. 
6. 


OUR  FATHEE,  THE  KIIG: 

BROTHERHOOD,  THE  KINGDOM 


"  Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven,  Hallowed  be  thy  name.    Thy  king- 
dom come.    Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." — Matt,  vi.,  9, 10 


Day  and  night,  the  tides  are  rising  along  our  shores,  filling  bay 
and  estnary,  silently  for  the  most  part,  yet  surely.  The  power  that 
draws  them  resides  afar  off  in  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  is  not  seen 
nor  noticed,  bnt  only  inferred.  All  the  goodness  of  men,  their 
generous  impulses,  their  loves  and  faiths  and  inspirations  of  purity, 
their  zeal  and  enthusiasm  in  self-denial  and  devotion — that  great 
human  tide  of  goodness  which  is  moving  in  upon  the  human  heart — 
is  derived  from  God,  who,  afar  off,  silent  as  the  moon  in  summer 
nights,  is  drawing  all  men  unto  him.  The  rising  of  the  Avaters 
toward  the  planets  is  by  force :  the  rising  of  human  affections  is 
by  influence.  Matter  has  no  conscious  jiart  in  its  own  motion. 
But  though  God  efficiently  quickens  men,  they  work  together  with 
him  responding  to  his  influence,  and  are  drawn  toward  Him. 

In  God's  creation  we  find  a  steady  progress  from  force  toward 
voluntary  life,  from  power  toward  persuasion,  from  coercion  toward 
liberty.  The  lines  of  development  in  the  human  race  are  running 
steadily  in  these  directions.  Men  therefore  worship  the  worship- 
ful ;  they  love  the  lovely ;  they  admire  the  glorious ;  and  they  sub- 
mit to  the  consciously  superior  virtue. 

Two  things  are  required  for  the  production  of  any  result  in  a 
moral  agent — a  sentient  faculty,  and  truths  which  have  in  their 
nature  a  relation  to  that  faculty,  and  tend  to  produce  its  pe- 
culiar and  distinctive  operation.  Two  things  are  needed  in  a  viol : 
the  string  whose  vibrations  contain  the  musical  impulse,  and  tlio 
hand  that  sets  it  m  motion.  The  string  can  not  move  itself^ 
Neither  could  the  hand  produce  music  if  it  were  not  for  tlie  string. 

8tmr»AT  Morning,  Apuil  7,     1872.    Lesson  :  Matt.  V.,  1-17.    Hymns,  (Plymouth  Col- 
lection) :  Nos.  »12,  705,  505. 


96  0  UE  FA  THEB,  THE  KING : 

Human  faculty  is  like  the  string,  and  divine  influence  is  the  hand  or 
power. 

It  would  be  folly  to  condemn  animals  for  the  lack  of  moral 
quality,  because  they  have  no  moral  faculty.  It  is  wise  to  condemn 
men  for  the  want  of  moral  quality,  because  they  have  in  them  that 
which  was  created  for  that  very  purpose.  In  dealing  with  men  it  is 
in  vain  to  expect  an  answer  to  any  appeal  unless  something  is  pre- 
sented whose  end  it  is  to  draw  out  such  answer.  It  is  in  vain  to 
demand  that  the  eye  sliall  see,  if  there  is  no  light  given  it  to  see  by ; 
or  that  the  ear  shall  hear,  if  there  be  no  sound  conveyed  to  the 
ear ;  or  that  the  hand  shall  feel,  if  there  be  nothing  that  touches  it. 

The  moral  nature  requires,  also,  its  correspondency.  And  as  it  is 
in  the  body,  still  more  so:  is  it  in  mind  and  in  morals.  How  shall  we 
smite  if  there  be  nothing  wherewith  to  smite  ?  How  shall  ^f  e  en- 
joy if  there  be  nothing  enjoyable  ?  How  shall  one  laugh  unless  there 
be  mirth-provoking  truth  to  excite  laughter  ?  How  shall  one  smile 
if  there  be  nothing  to  please  ?  How  shall  one  weep  if  there  be  no 
sorrow-breeding  presentations  ?  How  shall  one  admire  without 
something  admirable  ?  How  shall  one  love  where  there  is  no  love- 
liness, or  approve  where  there  is  no  fitness,  or  revere  where  there  is 
no  superiority,  or  worship  without  any  view  of  worshipful  things  ? 

On  this  principle  it  is  that  the  Bible  from  beginning  to  end  is 
constructed.  It  assumes  and  makes  its  appeals  to  man's  intelligence. 
It  assumes  that  man  is  morally  susceptible.  It  appeals  to  his  moral 
susceptibilities,  according  to  their  kind  and  laws.  It  assumes  moral 
truth  to  be  admirable,  and  then  demands  a  response  to  it  because 
it  is  admirable,  judged  according  to  the  law  of  faculty  by  which  ad- 
mirableness  is  judged  in  man.  It  presents  the  divine  nature  as 
containing  in  itself  the  qualities  which,  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
mind,  should  produce  every  experience  commanded  and  expected 
of  men.  Wrapped  up  in  the  divine  nature,  and  disclosed  by  reve- 
lation and  experience,  are  all  the  causes  which  tend  to  produce  the 
states  of  mind  which  are  made  duties  among  men. 

When  we  pray  for  the  extension  of  Christ's  kingdom,  it  must 
be  from  a  recognition  of  the  beauty  and  desirableness  of  that  king- 
dom. I  cannot  pray  for  it  merely  because  I  am  commanded  to  do  it. 
I  am  commanded  to  do  it  because  I  have  been  endowed  with  a  sense 
of  its  desirableness.  I  cannot  admire  beauty  simply  because  I  am 
told  to  admire  it.  Can  a  blind  man  admire  a  picture  which  he  can- 
not see,  or  a  man  asleep  rejoice  in  pleasures  which  he  cannot  feel, 
upon  mere  command  ?  We  must  have  such  a  sense  of  God's  good- 
ness as  to  long  that  his  will  shall  be  done.  We  must  desire  to 
have  his  kingdi^m  universal  because  he  is  Father,  not  according  to 


BBOTEEBEOOD,  THE  KINGDOM,  97 

the  pinched  and  penurious  interpretation  which  we  give  to  that 
glorious  word,  but  because  he  is  a  Father  transcending  any  earthly 
experience  as  much  as  the  infinite  does  the  finite.  When  the  com- 
mand comes  to  us  to  worship  God,  to  obey  him,  to  pray  to  him,  and 
to  ask  for  the  extension  of  liis  kingdom,  there  must  be  such  a  pres- 
entation of  God  to  our  mmds  as  shall  wake  in  us  a  response  from 
those  moral  faculties  which  God  gave  to  us.  If  men  shall  make 
such  presentations  of  the  Divine  Being  and  divine  government  as 
violate  the  moral  judgment  which  is  inherent  in  universal  hu- 
manity, and  which  it  is  the  pui'pose  of  the  Gospel  to  develop  in 
man,  then  we  are  to  reject  such  presentations.  What  if  one  cry, 
"  These  be  thy  gods,  0  Israel — bow  down  and  worship !"  Israel  is 
bound  to  worship  only  the  true  God.  The  true  God  must  report 
the  evidence  of  his  being  and  nature  to  man's  moral  sense,  l^o 
man  has  a  right  to  worship  a  demon  because  priest  or  prophet  call 
the  cruel  thing  God.  It  is  a  shame  for  any  one  to  say  to  supreme 
selfishness,  "Thy  will  be  done."  Only  goodness  has  a  right  to  be 
worshiped.  Shall  we  call  darkness,  light  ?  evil,  good  ?  harsh  dis- 
sonance, music  ?  Shall  a  man  lie  to  his  eye  and  bear  false  witness 
of  his  ear  ? 

Behind  this  hideous  vision,  this  horrid  and  wicked  picture  which 
men  have  made,  there  is  a  nature  of  God  which  answers  to  my  moral 
inspirations — which  answers  to  that  which  is  best  in  me,  and  best  in 
my  whole  kind ;  and  that  One  I  will  find  out.  My  heart  cries  out 
for  God — but  not  for  a  heathen  deity,  cruel,  selfish  and  hard.  If 
there  be  any  where,  in  creed,  philosophy  or  poetry,  a  revelation  of 
Love  triumphmg  over  evil,  of  Power  witho^it  despotism,  of  a  Father 
who  chastens  whom  he  loves;  who  inflicts  pain  for  the  sufferer's 
good ;  who  stoops  from  the  height  of  heaven  to  suffer  for  his  crea- 
tures, rather  than  to  inflict  suffering  upon  them,  let  such  a  one  be 
manifested  and  I  will  cry  with  heart  and  soul,  "  Thy  will  be  done  ! " 
And  when  that  which  is  admirable  is  seen,  and  that  which  is  uni- 
versally beneficent  is  known,  to  that  One  I  will  say  "  leather  "  ;  to 
that  One  I  will  say,  "  Thy  kingdom  come !" 

It  is  therefore  a  prime  duty  in  all  teachers  to  clear  away  the  mis- 
conceptions and  hideous  fables  which  may  have  grown  uj)  around 
human  conception  of  the  divine  character,  and  to  bring  forth  those 
attributes  which  will  draw  men  toward  God,  not  only,  but  which 
will  lead  them  to  take  hold  of  Him  by  their  highest  and  best  nature, 
and  not  by  their  lowest  and  worst — that  is,  by  love  and  admiration, 
and  not  by  fear  and  selfishness. 

I.  Moral  qualities  are  the  same  in  God  that  they  are  in  man ;  other- 
wise there  can  be  no  sympatliy,  no  understanding,  and  in  fact  there 


98  OUB  FATHEB,  TEE  KING  : 

can  be  no  intelligible  God  for  men.  They,  therefore,  who  tell  na 
that  we  are  so  unlike  to  God,  that  the  transfer  in  our  thoughts  of 
our  knowledge  and  experience  to  the  divine  nature  is  a  falsification 
of  that  divine  nature  ;  that  we  are  so  utterly  different  from  God  in 
quality  and  kind  that  there  is  no  significance  in  our  experience,  no 
interpretation,  no  analogy  between  him  and  us,  do  practically  take 
from  us  the  power  of  forming  any  conception  of  God. 

What  idea  do  we  get  of  color  that  is  represented  by  blue,  but 
which  blue  does  not  at  all  resemble  ?  What  if  a  man  say  to  us,  "  If 
you  wish  to  know  how  your  mother  looked,  Avho  died  when  you 
were  too  young  to  remember  her,  look  at  that  picture,  which  comes 
nearest  to  a  resemblance,  and  yet  does  not  look  like  her  at  all "  ! 
Why,  without  resemblance  what  possible  means  can  there  be  of  get- 
ting at  the  obscure  and  unknown  ?  How  are  we  to  know  divine 
being  if  it  is  so  radically  different  from  anything  that  we  laiow  that 
there  is  no  analogy  that  can  interpret  it  ?  Honor,  justice,  truth, 
love,  purity,  hope,  fidelity — these  are  in  essential  nature  alike  in 
God  and  in  men  ;  and  we  can  reason  from  our  knowledge  to  the 
existence,  the  attributes,  and  the  administration  of  the  Divine 
•  Being.  It  is  very  true  that  human  and  divine  experience  are  not 
identical — that  they  are  not  precise  measures  one  of  the  other.  I  do 
not  undertake  to  say  that  love  exists  in  so  feeble  or  in  so  adulterated 
a  form  in  the  divine  nature  as  it  does  in  human  experience ;  that 
these  qualities,  when  they  are  divested  of  those  physical  conditions 
which  are  fitted  to  be  cradles,  but  which  will  pass  away  when  the 
child  grows  to  manhood,  will  be  comparable  to  the  same  qualities 
in  the  divine  nature.  In  God  they  are  inconceivably  more  beauti- 
ful and  glorious  than  they  are  in  men.  I  merely  mean  that  the 
root-quality  which  we  apprehend  is  the  same  ;  and  that  there  is  an 
understanding  existing  in  that  wliich  we  are  and  which  we  feel, 
which  is  the  basis  of  a  correct  interpretation  of  the  divine  nature. 
The  scope,  the  grandeur,  the  overflow,  the  beauty  of  the  divine 
character  will  put  all  our  conceptions  at  defiance.  The  fruitfnlness 
of  the  divine  nature  cannot  be  compassed  by  our  thought.  We  are 
feeble  compared  with  the  agencies  of  God  in  natural  law ;  feeble  in 
understanding,  compared  Avith  the  vitalizing  influences  of  the  divine 
nature ;  feeble  and  fruitless,  comparatively,  in  the  noble  qualities 
that  go  to  make  up' manhood.  God  will  transcend  in  grandeur  and 
fruitfnlness  any  model  or  magnification  of  models.  The  imagination 
cannot  augment  quality  so  as  to  represent  God.  ISTevertheless,  the 
quality  in  us  and  in  him  is  the  same  in  kind,  though  not  in  great- 
ness. 

A  little  child  has  never  gone  out  of  its  native  village.   Its  father 


BBOTHEBEOOD,  THE  KINGDOM.  99 

has  been  a  sailor.  The  child  says  to  him,  "  Father,  what  is  the 
ocean  ?"  "  Oh,  my  child,"  says  the  father,  "  the  occau — why,  sup- 
pose that  little  brook  there  were  to  widen,  and  widen,  and  widen, 
till  it  reached  away  beyond  that  hill  ;  and  then  suppose  it  were  to 
widen,  and  widen,  and  widen,  till  it  reached  away  beyond  the  moun- 
tain ;  and  then  suppose  it  were  to  reach  farther  and  farther  till  you 
could  not  see  the  banks  of  it,  that  would  be  the  ocean."  "  What, 
father  !  as  big  as  that  ?"  "  Oh,  my  child,  it  is  a  thousand  times 
bigger  than  that."  "  Well,  father,  what  is  a  storm  on  the  ocean  ?" 
The  father  takes  a  pail  of  water,  and  sets  it  down,  and  oscillates  it 
until  the  waves  roll  from  side  to  side,  and  then  he  says,  "  That  is 
it,  on  a  small  scale,  my  child.  It  gives  only  a  hint  of  what  a  storm  on 
the  ocean  is."  The  child  will  have  a  very  limited  conception,  I  take 
it,  of  such  a  storm  from  what  he  sees  in  the  pail.  But  every  drop 
of  that  water  in  the  pail  is  like  the  water  of  the  oceaei ;  and  every 
one  of  its  waves,  in  its  curves,  its  motions,  its  laws,  represents  the 
most  gigantic  waves  of  the  sea. 

Thus  the  lowest  experiences  in  human  nature,  of  love,  of  pity, 
of  fidelity,  and  of  truth,  small  in  us,  are  of  the  same  essential  quality 
as  they  are  in  God.  They  are  vaster  in  God,  they  are  in  him  in- 
conceivable in  magnitude,  in  intensity,  in  fruitfulness  and  in 
beauty,  but  we  have  the  root-notion ;  and  it  is  not  an  unfair  in- 
terpretation which  our  imagination  gives. 

Moral  likeness  of  qualities  in  God  and  men  is  indispensable  to 
man's  communion  with  Him. 

We  cannot  send  up  our  affections  to  God  unless  there  is  in  the 
divine  nature  something  that  corresponds  to  our  affections.  Any 
other  view  than  this  seems  to  me  to  lead  to  an  abyss  of  ignorance, 
or  else  to  the  wastes  of  atheism.  The  best  experiences  of  mankind 
are  fairly  analogues  of  the  nature  of  God.  "  Blessed,"  therefore,  "  are 
the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God." 

II.  Man  is  commanded  to  indue  himself  with  the  moral  quali- 
ties which  are  revealed  in  God.  When  it  is  said  "Be  ye  there- 
fore perfect  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect/' 
we  are  exhorted  to  practice  the  virtues  which  exist  in  God.  God 
is  our  exemplar.  His  attributes,  so  far  as  imitable,  are  our  proper 
models.  If  then  pride,  self-will,  self-seeking,  the  use  of  all  creation 
as  a  means  of  self-gratification,  are  right  in  God,  they  are  models 
for  our  imitation.  Nothing  can  be  more  destructive  to  the  moral 
sense  of  mankind,  than  to  regard  these  qualities  which  are  detestable 
among  men,  as  right  and  noble,  because  exercised  by  a  being 
of  larger  nature  and  in  a  position  of  irresponsible  power.  If  it  is 
wrong  for  a  man  to  make  his  own  fame  the  supreme  object  of  life, 


100  OUB  FATEEB,  THE  KING: 

it  cannot  but  be  yet  more  wrong  at  eacli  step  upward  on  tlie  scale 
of  being.  If  any  creatures  are  to  be  indulged  with  license  it  is  the 
weak  and  feeble.  Obligations  of  honor,  justice,  truth,  magnanimity, 
meekness,  disinterestedness,  increase  as  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  be- 
ing, and  are  supreme  in  God.  To  say  that  God  has  a  right  to  be 
se-lfish  because  he  is  Sovereign  and  can  do  as  he  pleases,  is  to  corrupt 
our  fundame'ntal  notions  of  morality.  It  is  a  lesson  borrowed  from 
the  most  abject  form  of  absolute  monarchy.  Those  moral  disposi- 
tions inculcated  by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the  sublime  ex- 
ample of  the  self-sacrificing  nature  of  divine  love,  in  Jesus  Christ, 
have  educated  the  moral  sense  in  Christendom.  And  that  Christi- 
anity which  formed  moral  sense  in  us  must  be  tlie  criterion  by  which 
to  accept  or  reject  the  attributes  of  God,  which,  from  time  to  time, 
tlieologians  present.  And  this  same  Christian  moral  sense  must 
guide  us  in  all  our  interpretations  of  the  meaning  of  the  inspired 
Scriptures,  when  there  seem  to  be  discordant  or  conflicting  represen- 
tations of  the  Divine  character.  If  Christ  was  meek  and  lowly  of 
heart;  if  he  taught  men  that  self-sacrifice  was  nobler  than  self- 
indulgence  ;  if  he  by  word,  and  yet  more  illustriously  by  deed, 
declared  that  moral  nobility  stood  rather  in  suffering  for  others,  than 
in  inflicting  sufiering  upon  them ;  if  the  examples  and  precepts  of 
Jesus  teach  leniency  rather  than  severity,  forgiveness  rather  than 
condemnation,  mercy  rather  than  sacrifice,  love  rather  than  wrath, 
then,  in  building  up  in  our  minds  a  conception  of  God,  we  must 
not  be  deluded  by  monarchical  maxims,  nor  barbaric  ethics,  nor  by 
figures  of  speech,  or  poetic  and  dramatic  imagery.  We  must  give 
supremacy  to  the  attributes  which  Christ  taught  and  exemplified, 
and  construe  all  other  representations  into  harmony  with  them. 

If  the  Gospel  be  not  a  deluding  fable,  then  we  know  among  moral 
qualities  which  are  good  and  Avhich  evil.  Selfishness,  arrogance, 
self-will,  pride,  Avrath,  injustice,  are  not  turned  into  virtues  by 
placing  them  in  the  sphere  of  the  infinite  and  giving  sovereignty  to 
them. 

That  law  which  binds  you  and  me — the  law  of  the  cradle ;  the 
law  of  the  household ;  the  law  of  love ;  the  law  of  philanthropy ;  the 
law  of  universal  sympathy — is  nowhere  so  mighty  as  in  the  supreme 
Heart-governor  of  the  universe,  who  does  what  he  pleases  because 
he  always  pleases  to  do  good.  I  will  admit  that  in  one  sense,  looking 
at  it  in  one  way,  God  can  take  no  counsel  with  any  man.  He 
j-udges  of  what  is  benevolent  as  no  other  being  does,  because  no 
other  being  can  equal  his  thought  of  beneficence.  He  does  his  Avill 
merely  Ijecause  he  stands  above  all  other  intelligences  in  the  per- 
ception of  that  which  is  for  universal  happiness.     The  law  of 


BROTREBROOD,  TEE  KINGDOM.  101 

God  can  receive  no  augmentation.  Who  are  tliere  in  the  uni- 
ferse  that  have  not  derived  their  judgment  and  knowledge  from 
him  ?  And  by  that  hiw,  that  moral  constitution,  which  he  put  in 
men,  and  which  generation  after  generation  augments  and  majves 
stronger  and  stronger,  I  judge  him  to  be  one  who  does  not  believe 
that  might  makes  right,  but  believes  that  goodness  makes  right. 
And  he  does  what  he  pleases  because  he  pleases  to  do  that  which  is 
infinitely  good,  and  fruitful  in  infinite  joy. 

There  be  those  who  teach  us  that  God  acts  supremely  for  his  own 
glory.  That  you  can  put  a  construction  upon  this  which  will  disa- 
buse it  of  its  first  and  apparent  meaning,  I  know.  It  may  be  that 
God's  glory  consists  in  the  welfare  of  his  creatures,  and  that  there- 
fore he  reigns  for  his  own  glory.  "With  such  an  interpretation  as 
that  the  sentiment  has  the  heartiest  approval  of  every  soul  which  is 
susceptible  of  moral  convictions  and  intuitions.  But  that  has  not 
always  been  the  interpretation  given  to  it. 

All  that  in  me  which  is  the  "  fruit  of  the  Spirit "  rebels  against 
a  transfer  to  God,  of  qualities  which  I  have  been  trained  to  hate  in 
men !  I  will  not  worship  a  malign  Deity.  I  will  not  pray,  ''  Thy 
Kingdom  come"  to  a  Being  who  is  represented  as  doing  things 
which  the  worst  tyrant  that  ever  lived  to  torment  men  could  not 
have  surpassed.  Such  a  Being  is  not  God.  It  is  a  hideous  fiction — 
an  ideal  idol,  which  every  sane  and  good  man  should  help  to  cast 
down.  Hear  Theology  saying ;  "  By  the  decree  of  God,  for  the 
manifestation  of  his  glory,  some  men  and  angels,  are  predestinated 
unto  everlasting  life,  and  otheks  fokeordained  to  everlasting 
DEATH."  Is  God,  then,  One  who  in  calm  council  with  himself 
determined  to  create  multitudes  of  men  on  purpose  that  they  might 
sin,  and  that  they  might  sufier  for  sinning,  and  that  forever  ?  Did 
he  organize  men  to  produce  sin  just  as  the  loom  is  built  to  produce 
textile  fabrics,  just  as  the  engine  is  built  to  develop  and  utilize 
power?  Did  he  build  them  that  they  should  answer  the  ends 
of  creation  by  suffering  forever  and  ever  ? 

Look  at  Chapter  Third,  from  the  Confession  of  Faith  of  the  Say- 
brook  Platform,  adopted  by  the  Congregational  churches  and  minis- 
ters of  Connecticut,  1708  [cited  below,  entire]*.    It  is  with  a  few 

*1.  "  God  from  all  eternity  did,  by  the  most  wise  and  holy  council  of  his 
own  will,  freely  and  unchangeably  ordain  whatsoever  comes  to  pass ;  yet, 
so  as  thereby  ueitlier  is  God  the  author  of  sin,  nor  is  violence  offered  to  the 
will  of  the  creatures,  nor  is  the  liberty  or  contingency  of  second  causes 
taken  away,  but  rather  established." 

2.  "  Although  God  knows  whatsoever  may  or  can  come  to  pass  upon  all  sup- 
posed conditions;  yet  hath  he  not  decreed  anything,  because  he  foresaw  it 
as  future,  or  that  which  would  come  to  pass  upon  such  conditions." 

3.  "By  the  decree  of  God,  for  the  manifestation  of  his  glory,  some  men  and 


102  OUB  FA THEB,  TEE  KING : 

variations  identical  with  what  is  called  the  Savoy  Confession,  or  one 
agreed  npon  at  a  conference  of  bishops  and  dissenting  ministers, 
held  at  the  Savoy,  London,  1661.  The  Savoy  is  almost  identical 
with  the  Westminster  Confession,  formed  in  1643  and  ratified  by 
Parliament  1690.  It  was  approved  and  made  part  of  the  Cambridge 
Platform  by  the  Congregational  ministers  and  chnrehes  of  New 
England,  1648, — a  few  years  only  after  its  promulgation.  The 
Westminister  Confession  is  also  the  Confession  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  of  the  United  States,  and  is  subscribed,  entirely,  or  "  for 
substance  of  doctrine,"  by  every  licentiate  of  the  churcli. 

I  am  not  finding  fault  with  the  Doctrine  of  Decrees,  but  only 
with  the  one  special  decree,  namely,  the  foreordination  of  men  to 
eternal  damnation.  I  am  not  arguing  the  question  of  the  reality  and 
justice  of  eternal  future  punishment  as  that  dogma  is  held  by  ortho- 
dox churches.  For  evangelical  churches,  at  least  in  our  day,  declare 
that  men  have  sinned  willfully,  needlessly,  against  light  and  dis- 
suasion ;  that  God  neither  openly  nor  secretly  desired  it,  or  desires 
their  punishment ;  that  even  after  thetransgression  he  earnestly  inter- 
posed recuperative  influences,  sincerely  oflFered,  and  within  the  reach 
and  compliance  of  every  man  to  whom  the  gospel  comes.    Now  the 

angels  are  predestined  unto  everlasting  life,  and  others  foreordained  to  ever- 
lasting deatb." 

4.  "  These  angels  and  men,  thus  predestined  and  foreordained  [that  is,  those 
■who  will  go  to  eternal  happiness,  and  those  who  are  to  go  to  eternal  misery] 
are  particularly  and  unchangeably  designed,  and  their  number  is  so  certain 
and  definite,  that  it  cannot  be  either  increased  or  diminished." 

5.  "Those  of  mankind  that  are  predestinated  unto  life,  God,  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world  was  laid,  according  to  his  eternal  and  immutable 
purpose,  and  the  secret  counsel  and  good  pleasure  of  his  will,  hath  chosen  in 
Christ,  unto  everlasting  glory,  out  of  his  mere  free  grace  and  love,  without 
any  foresight  of  faith  or  good  works,  or  perseverance  in  either  of  them,  or 
any  other  thing  in  the  creature,  as  conditions,  or  causes  moving  him  there- 
unto, and  all  to  the  praise  of  his  glorious  grace." 

6.  "  As  God  hath  appointed  the  elect  unto  glory,  so  hath  he  by  the  eternal 
and  most  free  purpose  of  his  will  foreordained  all  the  means  thereunto. 
Wherefore  they  who  are  elected,  being  fallen  in  Adam,  are  redeemed  by 
Christ,  are  effeetualUy  called  unto  faith  in  Christ  by  his  Spirit  working  in 
due  season,  are  justified .  adopted,  sanctified,  and  kept  by  his  power,  through 
faith  unto  salvation.  Neither  are  any  other  redeemed  by  Christ,  or  effect- 
ually called,  justified,  adopted,  sanctified,  and  saved,  but  the  elect  only." 

7.  "  The  rest  of  mankind,  God  was  pleased,  according  to  the  unsearchable 
counsel  of  his  own  self,  whereby  he  extendeth  or  witbboldeth  mercy  as  he 
pleiiseth,  for  the  glory  of  his  sovereign  power  over  his  creatures,  to  pass  by, 
and  to  ordain  them  to  dishonor  and  wrath  for  their  sin,  to  the  praise  of  his 
glorious  justice." 

This  view  of  the  Divine  eflBciency  in  the  production  of  sin,  first  rendered 
prominent  by  Augustine,  has  been,  at  various  periods,  the  subject  of  long 
and  bitter  controversy— one  part  holding  that  God  created  man  to  damna- 
tion, not  through  the  foresiirht  of  his  desert  by  reason  of  sin,  but  lor  other 
reasons,  hidden  in  God's  own  nature;  the  other  contendiugthat  though  men 
were  decreed  to  everlasting  damnation,  it  was  because  God  foresaw  tlie  evil 
that  they  would  commit,  and  for  which,  as  subjects  of  moral  goveriiment, 
they  would  deserve  the  penalties  incurred.  In  its  most  rigorous  sense  this 
chapter  is  still  held  by  what  are  styled  High  Calvinists.  But  is  believed 
that  the  vast  majority  of  orthodox  Congregationalist  and  Presbyterian 
ministers  would,  at  this  day,  be  unwilling  to  say  that  the  view  of  God, 


BBOTHEBHOOD,  TEE  KINGDOM.  103 

representation  of  God  in  tlic  cliapter  upon  Decrees  is  totally  irrec- 
oncilable with  such  views.  It  represents  God  as  having  for  some 
secret  purpose,  in  which  his  interest  was  to  be  promoted,  predestin 
ated  some  men  to  an  eternity  of  joy,  and  other  men  to  an  eternity 
of  wretchedness,  and  that  the  decree  had  in  it  the  imperativeness 
of  absolute  fate ;  it  executed  itself  with  such  irresistibleness  that  the 
number  of  either  kind  cannot  be  increased  or  diminished. 

"We  do  not  doubt  that  pain  is  a  moral  element,  and  that  penalty 
is  consistent  with  Divine  love.  But,  the  creation  of  suffering  for 
its  own  sake ;  or  the  ordination  of  men  to  suffering  without  regard 
to  its  benevolent  effects ;  and,  still  more,  an  idea  of  justice  which 
punishes  men  for  acting  according  to  the  creative  will  of  their 
Maker,  and  of  a  glory  which  would  be  illustrated  by  ordaining  men 
to  an  eternity  of  torment  without  foresight  of  good  or  evil  in  them, 
can  proceed  from  nothing  less  than  a  demoniac  nature.  If  one's 
imagination  can  sustain  him  while  he  flies  along  the  equatorial  line 
of  despair  following  the  endless  circle  of  but  one  single  soul,  that 
had  been  "  made  to  be  a  vessel  of  wrath,  had  been  ordained  to  sin, 
and  then  had  been  passed  by,  and  ordained  to  dishonor  and  wrath 
"to  the  praise  of  his  glorious  justice!"  he  would  cry  out  in  an 
ecstacy  of  righteous  indignation  against  such  monstrous  and  im- 
moral notions  of  Deity !  To  worship  such  a  Creator  would  be  im- 
piety. To  hold  up  such  a  view  to  love,  and  reverence,  is  to  insult 
the  moral  sense  which  has  been  rooted  in  the  gospel.  Such  a  God 
is  not  only  not  manifested  in  Christ  Jesus,  but  sits  over  against  the 
exquisite  beauty  of  his  revelation  of  God,  as  Hell  itself  sits  over 
against  Heaven.  If  such  views  were  believed,  and  widely  spread,  it 
would  authorize  and  justify  every  species  of  despotism  in  human 
government,  and  make  the  spread  of  Christian  ideas  of  justice  and 
self-sacrifice  impossible ! 

naturally  and  obviously  inferred  from  this  chapter,  is  the  view  which  Christ 
came  into  the  world  to  declare  and  manifest!  So  late  as  18G5,  the  Council  of 
the  Cou^rejiational  Churches  of  America,  meeting  at  Boston,  Mass.,  placed 
the  minister;;  and  churches  in  the  position  of  seeming  to  approve  this  chap- 
ter, although,  without  doubt,  very  few  of  them  held  it  in  the  sense  in 
which  it  was  held  by  the  early  fathers  of  New  England  in  1G18  and  1680.  The 
language  of  the  Boston  Council  was: 

"  We,  the  elders  and  messengers  of  the  Congregational  ehurches  of  the 
United  States  in  National  Council  a<stml)led  *  *  *  do  now  declare  our 
adherence  to  the  faith  and  order  of  the  apostolic  and  primitive  churches 
held  by  our  fathers,  and  substuniiaily  as  embodied  in  tlie  confcsftions  and 
platforms  lohich  our  Synods  of  1618  and,  1680  set  forth  or  reaffirmed.  We 
declare  that  the  experience  of  th(^  nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries  *  *  * 
has  only  dccj)encd  our  confidence  in  tlte  faith  and  pulityof  those  Fathers. 
Weldess  God  for  the  inheritance  of  tliese  doctrines." 

The  New  England  divines  of  1648  and  1680  held  to  the  doctrines  contained 
in  the  chapter  on  Decrees  in  a  far  more  vigorous  and  more  nearly  litei-al 
sense  than  have  the  modern  New  England  divines.  The  Unitarian  contro- 
versy produced  a  marked  chanae.  The  writings  of  Woods,  Dr.  Lyman 
Beeoher,  Prof.  Fitch,  and  Dr.  Taylor,  of  New  Haven,  have  well  nigh 
revolutionized  the  New  England  views.  And  it  is  at  least  unfortunate  that 
the  Council  of  Boston  should  have  inadvertently  gone  back  to  1048",  uu- 
miadful  of  the  great  progress  made  since  that  time. 


104  OUE  FATHEB,  TEE  KING: 

The  representation  of  God  made  in  the  Chapter  on  Decrees,  in 
the  Westminster  Confession,  is  not  less  blasphemous  because  honestly 
framed.  If  held  as  High  Calvinists  hold  it,  it  is  an  attack  upon  the 
sanctity  of  God,  and  upon  the  moral  sense  of  mankind.  If  it  be 
softened  by  explanations,  and  illustrated  by  other  parts  of  the  Con. 
fession,  as  is  done  by  Low  Calvinism,  it  still  can  never  be  brought 
into  agreement  with  that  idea  of  God  which  Jesus  Christ  came  into 
the  world  to  reveal.  Consider  what  a  crime  against  universal  jus- 1 
tice  and  universal  benevolence  it  would  be  for  God  to  connive  at 
the  eternal  loss  of  a  single  soul,  if  he  by  any  means  could  have  pre-  j 
vented  it!  But  what  shall  be  said  if  he  planned  that  ruin  ;  if  he 
called  it  justice;  if  he  proclaimed  the  feat  as  glorious  ?  Have  you 
ever  deeply  pondered  what  it  is  to  be  lost  ?  To  be  shut  out  from 
all  joy,  from  the  society  of  all  that  are  good,  to  be  herded  with  the 
offscouring  of  the  universe,  to  increase  in  the  capacity  of  suffering, 
through  ages  that  travel  forever  and  never  draAV  near  to  the  end 
of  their  journey  ? 

Consider  only  one  being,  one  single  soul,  carried  on  forever,  grow- 
ing huger  and  huger,  bloated  with  anguish,  pressing  forward,  swell- 
ing the  latitude  and  longitude  of  wails  that  for  ten  thousand  years  had 
shaken  with  horror  the  expanse,  and  which  yet  were  so  much  less  than 
the  later  wails  that  they  seemed  like  music  m  comparison  I  Con- 
sider the  rolling  of  the  vast  orb  of  damnation  with  a  single  soul  down 
through  countless  infinities  of  years  !  The  conception  of  one  soul 
being  lost  fills  every  sentient  heart  with  paralysis  of  despair — with 
unutterable  anguish.  Do  not  tell  me  that  God  created  one  soul  on 
purpose  to  damn  it ;  that  he  sat  and  thought  of  it,  and  said,  "  I 
will  do  it,"  and  started  it  on  its  hideous  way  of  wailing  and  sinning 
and  sorrowing,  and  wailing  and  sinning  and  sorrowing,  and  wailiiig 
and  sinning  and  sorrowing,  forever  and  forever — do  not  tell  me  this, 
and  then  ask  me  to  turn  around  and  say,  "  Our  Father." 

Could  there  be  a  heaven,  if  it  was  known  there,  that  beneath 
their  feet  one  single  creature  Avas  traveling  an  eternal  road  of  woe 
for  which  he  had  been  expressly  created  ?  Praise  would  be  dumb  ; 
chill  distrust  would  creep  upon  coufidence. 

What  then,  if  not  simply  one  single  solitary  being  were  moving  in 
an  eternal  pilgrimage  of  woe,  along  the  infernal  marl,  but  for 
ao-es  there  had  been  moving  thither  a  huge  caravan — a  myriad  of 
victims  !  What  could  be  thought  of  a  sovereign  who  organized  pain 
not  as  a  sanction  of  government,  but  who  created  beings  for  infinite 
pain,  in  order  to  bring  out  some  quality  in  himself  called,  by  Avhat 
strange  transmutation  of  words  I  know  not.  Justice  and  Glory !  If 
the  astoundino-  views  of  God  prevail  that  are  contained  in  thia 


BROTHEEEOOB,  THE  KINGDOM.  105 

immortally  infamous  chapter,  and  which  deeply  color  the  preaching 
of  even  those  that  would  give  them  the  mildest  significance,  then 
we  must  believe  that  a  world  is  continued  in  existence  to  pour  an 
incessant  flood  of  souls  into  that  eternal  anguish  for  which  they  were 
expressly  foreordained.  The  work  is  going  on  in  every  generation. 
It  will  go  on.  It  is  known.  It  was  foreseen.  It  was  planned  and 
ordained.  The  army  of  the  black  banner  must  already  be  incalculable. 
It  is  still  mustering.  Under  the  broad  canopy  of  blackness  and 
darkness  still  troop  onward  these  creatures  whom  God  created  ex- 
pressly that  he  might  manifest  his  glory  in  their  damnation  !  They 
fill  the  air.  They  crowd  the  eternal  road.  They  are  swept  on  to  the 
sound  of  that  trumpet  whose  blasts  are  full  of  thunder  and  woe. 
The  army  never  shrinks.  The  world  is  still  going  on  in  popula- 
tion ;  as  they  sink  at  one  end  of  the  line,  others  are  born  to  beghi 
the  inevitable  march  to  endless  doom.  God  looks  on.  He  does  not 
stop  it.  It  is  all  for  "  the  praise  of  his  glorious  justice" !  The  world 
is  busy,  populating — populating  its  tides  of  men  broader,  its  channels 
deeper.  As  Niagara  has  rolled  on  for  ages,  bearing  over  the  precipice 
myriads  beyond  count  of  drops  of  water,  that  plunged  whirling 
headlong  into  the  boiling  abyss  below,  so  we  must  think  that  the 
endless  stream  of  human  life  has  been  plunging  the  solid  breadth  of  its 
waters  over  into  the  abyss  of  blackness  and  darkness  forever.  They 
move  to  channels  prepared  for  them.  They  come  into  life  by  an 
ordinance.  They  are  met  here  by  a  decree  irresistible  as  Fate. 
They  reach  the  mark  at  which  God  aimed  them  ! 

Is  not  this  frightful  ?  Is  it  not  a  hideous  dream — a  nightmare  ? 
Do  men  ever  believe  it  and  maintain  their  reason  ?  Is  it  possible 
that  we  can  worship  at  this  shrine,  if  we  love  Goodness  ?  Is  this 
the  government  of  a  Father  ? 

It  may  be  said,  that  the  Divine  Sovereign  is  not  Father  in  any 
such  low  degree  as  man  is,  and  that  it  is  not  safe  to  reason  from  an 
earthly  Fatherhood  to  the  Infinite  Father.  True.  But  in  which 
direction  shall  we  trace  the  diflerence  ?  Is  God  less  tender  than  a 
man — less  merciful  ?  Even  before  the  clearer  revelation  in  Jesus, 
it  Avas  said,  "  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the  unrighteous 
man  his  thought,  and  let  him  return  unto  the  Lord  and  he  will 
have  mercy  upon  him,  and  to  our  God  for  he  will  abundantly  par- 
don him.  For  my  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  nor  my  Avays 
your  ways,  saith  tlie  Lord.  For  as  the  heavens  are  liigher  than  the 
earth,  so  are  my  ways  higher  than  your  ways,  and  my  thoughts  than 
your  thoughts."     (Is.  55  :  7,  8.) 

And  Jesus,  encouraging  men  to  love  and  trust  in  God,  pointed 
to  the  relation  of  children  and  parents,  and  said,  "  If  ye  then,  being 


106  OUB  FATHER,  THE  KING: 

evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children,  hoio  much  more 
shall  your  Father  who  is  m  heaven  give  good  things  to  them  that  ask 
him  ?"  God's  Fatherhood  rises  to  an  inconceivable  majesty  of  good- 
ness. It  is  spotted  by  no  ignorance,  it  is  creased  by  no  weakness,  is 
distorted  by  no  selfishness,  is  clouded  by  no  insincerity.  It  is  full 
of  that  tenderness  out  of  which  mothers  learn  to  love  their  babes. 
It  is  the  source  of  that  noble  joy  with  which  every  father  looks  for- 
ward to  the  well-being  of  his  sons.  He  taught  the  parent  to  be 
patient  with  weakness,  to  hide  a  child's  sins  till  brooding  love  could 
cure  them. 

Fatherhood  is  the  central  light  of  the  Household  of  the  Em- 
pyrean, and  from  it  came  that  spark  which  glows  in  every  house- 
hold of  love  on  earth,  teaching  men  that  he  is  greatest  who  suf- 
fers most  for  the  sake  of  others.  And,  lest  the  faint  analogies 
should  be  too  dim  for  our  eyes,  He  sent  forth  his  Son,  to  save  a 
world  from  sin  and  doom,  while  yet  it  was  his  enemy.  As  he  was 
coming  to  earth,  angels  cried,  "  Good-toill  to  men  /"  As  he  was 
departing  from  life,  he  sent  back  the  cry,  "  Father,  forgive  them  !" 
His  life  between  these  points  is  written  in  a  sentence,  "  He  went  about 
doing  good" 

To  Him  every  knee  shall  bow  and  every  tongue  confess  to  the 
Glory  of  God  the  Father  !  God's  glory  effulgcs  in  the  many  vir- 
tues which  he  has  made  obligatory  upon  men — gentleness,  meek- 
ness, benevolence,  sympathy,  self-denial,  giving  forth  to  others, 
rather  than  coveting  all  good  for  ourselves. 

Tell  me  that  God  fills  the  heaven,  and  governs  the  earth,  thai 
Providence  is  benevolent,  and  that  the  divine  government,  when 
we  shall  see  the  full  accomplishment  of  its  final  intents,  shall  bring 
forth  this  proved  and  approved  fatherhood ;  tell  me  that  God  sits  in 
the  heaven,  not  so  much  to  think  of  himself  as  to  pour  thoughts 
that  are  benefactions,  and  affections  that  are  inspirations,  upon  all 
the  endlessly  increasing  universe,  and  then  nothing  can  restrain  me. 
I  turn  to  such  a  conception  of  God  and  join  that  universal  cry 
which  shall  acclaim  Jesus,  Victor,  when  heaven  and  earth  shall  say, 
"  Tiiou  ART  Worthy  !" 

Spurn  these  hideous  dreams  of  superstition  and  darkness — these 
web-weavings  of  philosophy  run  mad  !  Take  the  sweetness  of  the 
mother,  her  tears  over  her  cradle,  her  night  watchings,  her  quick  and 
easy  withdrawals  from  everything  delightful  and  pleasant  for  the 
sake  of  ministering  to  those  who  are  dear  to  her — is  not  this  a  holier 
iniao-e  from  which  to  imagine  the  divine  character,  than  the  mon- 
archical  and  metaphorical  picture  ? 

I  often  behold  with  great  pleasure  the  maiden  growing  up  fair 


>      BBOTEERnOOD,  TEE  KINGDOM.  107 

and  fascinating.  Wherever  she  goes,  she  is  admired.  She  receives 
praise  on  every  side.  She  enjoys  it.  It  has  a  charm  for  her.  It  is 
new.  She  is  pure,  and  imaginative,  and  artless  5  and  she  gives  her- 
self to  this  round  of  royal  joy  ;  and  all  the  wise  people  who  know 
her  shake  their  heads,  and  say,  "She  is  frivolous — she  will 
never  come  to  wisdom."  But  she  is  not  grown  yet.  Nobody 
is  grown  who  has  not  loved.  The  hour  comes,  however,  when  love 
subdues  all  things,  and  she  is  led  to  the  altar.  She  becomes  a  wife. 
She  walks  in  a  subdued  vein  already.  But  not  until  she  is  queen 
over  that  which  is  utterly  helpless  and  dependent,  do  you  see  her 
whole  nature  bud  and  blossom.  How  she  draws  back  from  gaiety 
and  hilarity!  How  she  gives  up  the  song  and  the  dance!  How, 
through  weary  hours,  and  without  a  murmur,  does  she  watch  the 
cradle !  How  she  cares  not,  as  she  looks  in  the  mirror,  that  the 
roses  are  fading  from  her  cheeks !  Alas  !  alas !  the  little  child  is  a 
cripple ;  and  all  its  life  it  must  go  hobbling  with  but  one  limb 
sound,  the  marked  of  all  eyes  !  And  how  does  the  mother  give  her- 
self to  that  child  to  make  up  to  it  its  infirmity  !  How  glad  she  is 
to  sins:  to  it  or  read  to  it !  How  soon  all  the  world  becomes  but  a 
mao-azine  to  her  of  things  that  she  can  draw  from  to  bless  her  dear 
little  one !  How  for  five  or  ten  years  does  she  sacrifice  her  own  com- 
fort and  enjoyment  that  she  may  minister  to  its  wants ! 

Who  taught  her  this  requisite  self-sacrifice  of  love  ?  Is  it  a  weed 
sprung  up  from  human  depravity?  or  is  it  the  seed  of  a  divine 
flower  dropped  down  into  her  heart  from  heaven  ?  And  if  a  mother 
uses  the  forces  of  her  whole  life  and  household,  shall  not  the  God, 
whose  nature  inspired  hers,  employ  the  Universe  for  the  well-being 
of  his  creatures  ?  Is  she  better  than  God  ?  Is  a  mother's  love  su- 
per-divine ?  Nay,  is  not  God  the  Sun,  and  every  human  heart  but 
a  taper?  Is  not  Christ's  death  an  everlasting  testimony  to  the 
earnestness  of  God  to  exalt  mankind  ?  Does  not  God  rejoice  over 
one  sinner  that  repenteth  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  per- 
sons that  need  no  repentance  ?  A  lost  soul  could  have  no  such 
nipurner  iti  the  Universe  as  God!  What  noble  protestations,  what 
solemn  warnings  against  man's  self-destruction !  What  sacrifice; 
what  divine  sufi'ering,  what  energy  of  earnestness  in  behalf  of  men  ! 

Oh,  Love,  thou  art  medicine !  Oh,  Love,  thou  art  God !  From 
Thee  conies  the  everlasting  summer  of  the  soul !  From  such  a  God 
in  such  a  summer  could  never  come  those  deadly  parasites  that  liave 
wrapped  around  the  tree  of  life,  or  dropped  down  poisonous  blos- 
soms for  man's  death,  rather  than  love  for  the  healing  of  the 
nations ! 

I  worship  sjTch  a  God  as  is  revealed  in  Christ  I 


108  OUB  FATHER,  THE  KING: 

I  need  such  a  One,  fate  will  not  help  me.  I  need  such  a  One; 
for  I  am  deformed,  I  am  selfish,  I  am  proud,  I  am  wayward.  The 
forces  that  are  in 'men  drive  this  engine  in  me  with  terrible  alacrity, 
and  I  have  striven  to  overcome  it ;  but  day  and  night  it  masters 
me ;  and  day  and  night,  to  the  innermost  secrets  of  my  soul,  my 
consciousness  says,  "  Unclean  !  unclean  !  Dear  Love,  be  merciful !" 
I  need  a  God  who  shall  bear  with  me,  and  be  patient  with  me ;  and 
such  is  my  God  !     My  God  carries  in  his  heart  atonement. 

Men  ask  me,  "  Why  do  you  not  preach  atonement  ?"  Have  I 
not  preached  about  God's  love  ?  What  atonement  is  there  greater 
than  the  nature  of  God  ?  Atonement  is  God.  Do  you  suppose  God 
shoved  out  of  himself  a  little  historic  drama  which  was  mightier 
and  better  than  he  ?  What  was  that  but  a  symbol  to  interpret  what 
He  is  everlastingly  in  himself?  The  heart  of  God  it  is  that  over- 
comes. This  is  that  grace  by  which  we  are  saved.  This  is  that 
mercy  which  abounds  without  depth  and  without  exhaustion. 

God  the  Lover;  God  the  All-good;  God  that  will  not  by  any 
means  clear  the  guilty ;  God  that  would  save  them  every  one ;  God 
that  will  use  pain  and  joy  alike  in  dealing  with  those  whom  he 
loves,  to  make  them  his  children — this  is  the  God  whom  I  worship, 
and  against  whom  you  sin.  This  is  the  God  toward  whom  1  call 
you  to  repent.  Eepent  of  an  unfilial  life.  Eepent  of  selfishness  over 
against  such  bounty.  Eepent  of  all  that  is  low  and  base  and  dis- 
obedient as  against  the  Father  who  waits  for  you  in  the  heavenly 
land.  I  call  you  to  the  service  of  this  God,  magnificent  in  glory, 
transcendent  in  beauty,  but  most  of  all  glorious  because  long- 
suffering,  abundant  in  mercy,  "  forgiving  iniquity,  transgression 
and  sin."  To  this  God  I  call  you.  In  him  trust.  Live  by  him 
here.  Die  in  the  faith  of  him.  Else  toward  him.  Eejoice  with  liini 
forever  and  forever. 


PEAYEE  BEFOEE  THE  SEEMOK 

• 

We  thank  thee,  O  our  Father,  that  we  have  this  approach  to  thee  by 
desire;  that  our  wants  suggest  thee;  that  our  affections  are  evermore  drawn 
up  toward  thee ;  that  by  gratitude  we  discern  thee  through  our  blessings, 
and  that  by  faith  we  are  taught  to  discern  thee  through  our  sorrows  and 
troubles.  "We  rejoice  that  thou  hast  called  thyself  by  such  names;  that  all 
that  which  is  best  to  us  on  earth  is  now  associated  with  thee;  that  we  are 
helped  to  draw  near  to  thee  by  all  our  earthly  relations ;  and  that  we  in- 
terpret thee  no  longer  by  our  fear,  but  by  hope,  by  love,  by  wisdom,  and  by 
experience.  And  yet,  thou  art  greater  than  anything  that  we  can  conceive 
of  goodness.  In  all  thine  attributes  thou  art  more  wonderful.  In  all  thy 
procedure  thou  art  more  glorious.     When  we  shall  see  thee  as  thou  art. 


BEOTHEEEOOD,  THE  KINGDOM.  109 

and  know  the  secret  of  thy  universal  realm,  we  shall  behold  thee  in  colors 
and  in  a  grandeur  that  shall  put  to  shame  the  brightest  and  best  things  that 
we  have  seen  out  of  thee  upon  earth.  We  beseech  of  thee,  therefore,  that 
f;hou  wilt  grant  that  we  may  have  that  purity  of  heart,  that  warmth  of  love, 
that  blessedness  of  self-denial,  that  spirit  of  laboring  one  for  another,  by 
which  we  shall  best  see  God.  May  we  grow  in  grace,  that  we  may  grow  in 
the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

We  pray  that  we  may  not  be  left  to  the  suggestions  of  our  fancy.  May 
our  thoughts  be  inspired  by  thy  heart^-by  thy  Spirit.  May  we  have  the 
Holy  Ghost  giving  light  to  us— waking  in  us  thoughts  that  are  of  thee.  We 
pray  that  there  may  be  abiding  in  us  this  witness  of  God,  so  that  we  may  be 
children  of  God.  As  day  by  day  we  are  surrounded  by  thee,  may  we  be 
affected  even  as  children  are  unconsciously  affected  by  the  surrounding  in- 
fluences of  the  parents  with  whom  they  dwell.  May  we  cease  to  think  of 
this  world  as  something  separated  from  thy  government.  May  we  look 
upon  all  the  globe  as  being  thine.  And  though  it  be  but  thy  footstool— but 
a  part  of  thine  house  and  home — may  we  look  upon  all  the  things  which  are 
in  it  as  ministers  of  God  sent  to  minister  to  those  who  are  heirs  of  salvation. 
May  we  rejoice  in  all  the  way  of  thy  providence.  May  we  rejoice  in  all  the 
lessons  which  are  derived  thence  in  respect  to  thy  gi^ace.  If  the  outer  covu-t 
and  tabernacle  are  so  full  of  thy  glory,  what  shall  be  the  holy  of  holies  ?  Hoav 
blessed  shall  be  the  heavenly  estate,  if  thou  canst  lavish  such  abundance 
upon  the  earthly  estate !  If  now,  shattered  or  unbuilt,  the  earth  and  the 
heaven  speak  the  glory  of  God,  what  shall  it  be  when  thou  shalt  have  made 
the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  in  which dwelleth  righteousness? 

We  bring  to  thee,  this  morning,  the  only  offerings  which  we  can  bring— 
beautiful  thoughts;  thoughts  of  praise;  the  surrender  of  love.  Help  us  to 
desire,  this  morning,  the  beet  things  for  ourselves,  that  our  Father  may  be 
pleased  with  his  children.  Draw  us  nearer  to  thee  by  the  abundance  of  thy 
love,  so  that  we  may  find  ourselves  beginning  to  love.  And  yet,  what  can 
we  give  to  thee?  Of  all  the  things  that  are  made  bright  by  the  sun,  what 
thing  can  glorify  the  sun  ?  May  we,  standing  in  the  light  of  thy  glory,  re> 
fleet  that  light  and  that  glory,  and  so  be  thy  witnesses,  though  we  can  add 
nothing  to  thee. 

We  beseech  of  thee  to  draw  near  to  those  who  are  following  after  thee ; 
who  desire  to  know  more,  to  feel  more  of  thee.  Help  them  to  subdue  every 
evil  thought,  every  unruly  passion.  Help  them  to  bring  into  subjection 
everything  in  them,  that  they  may  be  the  children  of  the  living  God,  un- 
abashed and  unashamed. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  help  those  who  are  consciously  striving  with  the 
imperfections  of  their  nature— trying  to  adjust  and  to  hold  to  equilibrium 
their  warring  inclinations.  We  pray  that  the  Spirit  may  fight  against  the 
flesh,  and  overcome  it,  and  that  they  may  have  evidence  day  by  day  that 
they  are  rising,  though  slowly,  yet  surely,  into  their  better  self— into  their 
higher  life— into  commimion  with  God. 

As  the  things  of  the  world  are  passing,  and  as  our  experience  of  them 
is  not  making  them  more  precious  to  us;  grant  that  it  may  be  more  and 
more  easy  for  us  to  give  them  up,  and  to  have  oiu-  strength  in  our  hope 
and  in  our  eternal  treasure. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  those  who  mourn.  Remember  those  who 
are  filled  with  sorrow  for  their  sinfulness.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant 
that  none  may  despair.  May  those  who  have  done  wrong  do  so  no  more. 
Turn  them  back  from  every  evil  way,  and  confirm  them  in  the  ways  of  re- 
formation and  of  a  holy  repentance  not  to  be  repented  of.  Grant  that  they 
may  be  brought  into  fellowship  with  thee,  and  into  that  communion  tvhereia 
is  perfect  peace.    We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  and  sanctify  to 


110  THE  KING  AND  THE  KINGDOM. 

all  the  sorrows  with  which  thou  hast  visited  them  in  thy  providence.  May 
those  who  are  sufFeiiug  bereavement  feel  that  their  affliction  has  not  sprung 
from  the  ground ;  that  it  is  not  of  the  dust,  but  of  God.  May  they  be  able 
to  feel  that  God  hath  done  all  things  well.  And  though  he  reveal  not  the 
secret  of  his  purpose,  may  they  believe  that  yet  it  shall  be  made  plain  when 
all  things  shall  be  disclosed. 

We  pray,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  wilt  grant  to  those  who  are  under 
great  troubles  and  trials,  those  who  have  great  fears  and  anxieties,  that 
they  may  know  how  to  put  their  trust  in  God,  and  rest  in  his  promise,  and 
gather  much  fruit  of  consolation  therefrom. 

We  pray  for  all  the  strangers  that  are  iu  our  midst  who  have  backward 
thoughts  searching  out  the  friends  whom  they  have  left  far  away.  Sanctify 
their  home-sickness  and  heart-sickness.  Bring  them  into  nearer  communion 
with  thee,  and  through  their  faith  in  thee  nearer  to  those  who  are  absent 
from  them. 

We  pray  for  all  the  sick  and  all  that  are  in  affliction.  And  wilt  thou  be 
in  the  house  of  mourning.  Wilt  thou  be  in  the  midst  of  afflictions,  directing 
them  and  sanctifying  them.  Prepare  us  all  for  losses.  Prepare  us  for  all 
the  calamities  that  may  come  upon  us  in  life.  Prepare  us  for  old  age,  and 
for  its  infirmities.  Prepare  us  for  poverty.  Prepare  us,  if  it  be  thy  will, 
for  all  those  things  which  shall  make  the  earth  poor  indeed  to  us.  Prepare 
us  for  dying,  for  its  joys  and  its  triumphs.  May  we  so  live  that  we  shall  look 
for  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,  as  watchers  look  for  the  morning.  And 
when  we  shall  depart,  may  it  be  to  be  with  Christ.  May  we  behold  his 
glory  in  the  kingdom  of  his  Father.  May  we  then  discern  the  things  that 
are  invisible,  and  be  able  to  speak  the  things  that  are  now  unutterable. 
May  we  rise  from  glory  to  glory  to  be  forever  with  the  Lord. 

We  pray  that  thy  blessing  may  go  forth  this  day  in  all  directions  nnto 
the  churches  of  every  name,  that  thy  ministering  servants  may  be  able  to 
preach  in  sincerity,  in  truth,  and  with  power  from  on  high.  We  pray  that 
thou  wilt  take  away  from  among  thy  people  all  causes  of  division.  May 
they  see  eye  to  eye.  May  theylive  heart  in  sympathy  with  heart.  And  we 
pray  that  thou  wilt  more  and  more  overcome  the  powers  of  evil,  and 
strengthen  the  powers  of  good  throughout  the  world.  Fulflll  all  thy  prom- 
ises toward  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Enlighten  the  dark  places,  and 
raise  up  the  places  that  are  lying  low  in  superstition  and  ignorance.  We 
pray  that  thou  wilt  expel  all  unjust  government,  and  destroy  all  rule  that 
has  affliction  for  its  end.  And  let  that  latter-day  of  glory  come  when  all 
the  earth  shall  be  filled  with  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  and  when  there 
shall  be  brightness  and  joy  everywhere. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore. 

Amen. 

» 

PEAYEE  AFTEE  THE  SEE]\IOK 

Our  heavenly  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  follow  w"iSi  thy 
blessing  the  word  of  exhortation  and  the  word  ot  truth.  Cleanse  our 
hearts,  that  we  may  behold  thee  more  clearly.  Make  us  more  fit  ministers 
of  the  word,  by  making  us  better  in  manhood  and  better  in  true  piety. 
Overcome  our  many  sins.  Cleanse  us  from  all  uncleanness.  Deliver  us 
from  the  power  of  temptation.  Purify  our  tastes.  Give  charity  to  our 
reason.  Lead  us  by  thyself  to  thyself.  And  so,  when  we  shall  have  passed 
through  the  school,  and  shall  have  gra  laated,  may  we  go  home  to  thee  to 
be  sons  of  God  unrebukedly,  without  flaw,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  holy 
angels.    And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  glory  forever  and  forever.    Amen. 


VII. 

GoD's  Will  is  Good  Will. 


INVOCATION.. 

Look  upon  us,  O  Lord,  as  thou  didst  upon  thine  handmaid  of  old,  and 
call  us  by  name,  that  we  may  know  that  thou  art  the  risen  Saviour,  and  that 
thou  hast  triumphed  over  death  for  us,  that  our  life  may  stream  forth  toward 
thee,  and  that  we  may  have  newness  of  life  breaking  out  of  sorrow  and  joy 
unutterable.  We  pray  for  health.  Thou  art  full  of  light  and  life ;  give  of 
that  life  and  light  unto  us.  And  especially  in  the  service  of  the  sanctuary 
to-day  may  thy  Word  speak  as  first  it  was  spoken.  May  we  receive  it  by  the 
inward  understanding.  May  all  the  services  of  communion  and  prayer 
be  acceptable  to  thee.  May  our  fellowship  and  rejoicing  in  song  be  of  God ; 
and  may  all  the  labor  of  instruction  be  greatly  blessed  of  thee.  And  we 
pray  that  when  we  go  hence  to  our  homes  we  may  find  that  peace  which 
passeth  all  understanding,  brooding  the  day,  here  and  everywhere.  We  ask 
these  things  in  the  name  of  the  Beloved.    Amen. 


GOD'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL. 


*'  Rejoice  in  the  Lord  always :  and  again  I  say,  Rejoice.  Let  your  moder- 
ation be  known  to  all  men.  The  Lord  is  at  hand.  Be  careful  for  nothing; 
but  in  everything  by  prayer  and  supplication  with  thanksgiving  let  your 
requests  be  made  known  unto  God.  And  the  peace  of  God,  which  passeth 
all  understanding,  shall  keep  your  hearts  and  minds  through  Christ  Jesus."— 
Phil,  iv.,  4-7. 


In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  although  there  is  commenda- 
tion of  sorrow,  there  is  also  command  of  joy  and  rejoicing  under 
circumstances  which  seem  to  be  antagonistic  to  anything  like  joy. 
We  find,  also,  in  the  letters  of  the  inspired  men,  the  same  exhorta- 
tion. We  find  them  declaring  that  joy  is  one  of  the  fruits  of  the 
Spirit,  and  so  one  of  the  evidences  of  true  piety.  We  behold  an 
unconscious  evidence  of  that  same  truth *in  the  general  tone  of  the 
New  Testament  writings.  I  do  not  believe  there  is  in  the  compass 
of  human  literature  a  book  that  deals  with  such  profound  topies, 
that  touches  human  nature  on  so  many  sides  of  experience,  that  re- 
lates so  especially  to  its  sorrows,  its  temptations,  its  sins,  its 
guilt,  its  dangers,  all  the  forces  which  hover  over  that  aspect, 
and  to  its  hopes,  its  inspirations,  its  possibilities — and  yet,  which 
looks  over  the  whole  field  of  human  life  with  such  cheerful- 
ness of  spirit.  The  Ncav  Testament  is  a  book  of  radiant  joy.  Al- 
though there  are  certain  passages  in  it  which  are  terrible,  on  the 
whole  it  is  a  book  that  evidently  came  from  the  inspiration  of  hope, 
and  is  full  of  courage,  and  full  of  comfort.  You  may  say  what  you 
please  abouc  the  inspiration  of  Scripture,  as  long  as  there  are  tears - 
in  the  world,  and  sorrows  that  make  them,  as  long  as  there  are  sins, 
and  the  fears  which  guilt  breeds  in  men,  so  long  the  books  of  the 
Ntew  Testament  will  be  considered  authoritative — and  for  this 
simple  reason,  that  they  bring  balm  to  the  wants  of  men  where 
men's  wauts  are  most  immedicable  with  any  ordinary  dealing. 

Sttn-day  Moknino,  April  31.  1872.    Lesson  :  Psalm  CXLV.    Hymns,  (Plymouth  Col- 
lection) :  Nos.  I'M,  68a,  017. 


114  cfOB'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL. 

Yet,  it  is  a  qtiestion  whether  Christianity  has  produced  as  much, 
joy  as  it  has  sorrow — such  have  been  its  perversions ;  such  the  mis- 
understandings of  its  interpreters.  I  doubt  if  any  other  organized 
system  has  been  the  cause  and  the  occasion  of  such  stupendous 
cruelty,  both  to  the  body  and  to  the  soul,  as  Christianity  has  in  the 
hands  of  its  interpreters  from  age  to  age.  In  looking  round  upon 
tl>e  church  now,  in  these  better  times,  when  men  are  released  from 
many  superstitions,  if  you  were  to  look  for  the  signal  of  joy  as  one 
of  the  tokens  of  Christianity,  I  hardly  know  whether  I  should  be 
justified  in  saying  that  you  can  tell  the  difference  between  men 
who  are  Christians  and  men  who  are  not,  by  this  :  that  Cliristians 
are  more  radiant,  that  they  are  happier,  than  other  men.  That 
some  are,  there  is  no  doubt.  That  here  and  there,  whether  it  be 
temperament,  or  whether  it  be  a  better  disabusing  of  their  minds 
of  past  teaching,  or  whether  it  be  a  peculiarly  spiritual  constitution 
which  enables  them  to  seize  what  eludes  others — whatever  may  be 
the  application  of  it — there  are  many  who  rejoice,  I  do  not  doubt ; 
but  I  doubt  if  practically  it  would  be  safe  to  make  an  appeal  to  the 
world,  and  say  that  all  who  are  Christians  are  distinguished  from 
those  who  are  not  Christians  by  this  element  of  joy  in  the  Lord — 
or  in  anything  else. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  me  that  if  it  were  once  to  be  a 
thing  settled  and  certain  that  to  become  a  Christian  was  to  become 
a  child  of  joy,  and  that  the  peace  which  passeth  all  understanding 
was  to  be  realized  by  every  such  one — if  that  were  to  be  a  thing  ap- 
proved by  observation  and  made  known  by  experience,  the  very  cur- 
rent of  the  world  would  be  changed.  What  is  it  that  every  man 
seeks  but  that  very  joy  ?  What  is  the  motive  of  labor,  of  watch- 
.ng,  of  foresight,  of  even  care  and  pains,  but  the  fruit  of  joy  which 
men  expect  to  reap  ?  And  if  there  could  be  found  a  bay  where 
the  influences  were  tranquil — if  the  church  were  some  such  bay — all 
streams  would  run  into  it,  or  teward  it. 

Oh,  how  many  there  are  waiting  for  peace,  watching  for  peace, 
journeying  for  peace,  longing  for  peace !  Peace — the  peace  Avhich 
passeth  all  understanding— in  search  of  that  blessed  boon,  how  many 
pilgrims  there  are,  high  and  low!  and  how  few  there  are  that 
find  it  1 

When  you  look  at  the  actual  lives  of  Christians— even  of  those 
vho  strive  to  live  in  accordance  with  the  innermost  meaning  of  the 
erm  disciples  of  Christ,  do  you  find  joy  ?  I  do  not  think  that  you 
5nd  it  in  any  such  measure  as  to  characterize  them  and  discrimi- 
late  them  from  other  people.  Was  there,  then,  an  impossible  thing 
commanded  ?  Was  that  commanded  which  could  not  take  place  ? 
:  think  a^ 


GOD'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL.  115 

Our  florists  make  up  packages  of  seeds,  and  send  out  for  a 
dollar  thirty  kinds,  or  for  two  dollars  eighty  kinds;  there  are 
directions  that  go  with  them ;  and  every  package  is  labeled,  "  Gor- 
geous purple,"  "  Exceedingly  beautiful,"  "  Eemarkably  fine,"  and  so 
on,  referring  to  the  flowers.  Now,  let  these  seeds  go  into  the  hands 
of  some  clumsy  person  who  perhaps  has  raised  corn  and  potatoes, 
but  who  has  never  raised  flowers ;  and  let  him  plant  them  in  cold, 
wet,  barren  soil,  and  at  an  untimely  season.  A  few  of  them  will 
sprout,  and  will  come  slowly  up,  pale  and  spindling,  and  will 
be  neglected,  and  the  weeds  will  overrun  them ;  and  when  the 
time  for  blossoming  comes  there  will  be  found  here  and  there  a 
scrawny  plant  with  one  or  two  stingy  blossoms,  and  men  will  say, 
"Now  we  see  the  outcome  of  this  pretense.  Look  at  the  labels  on 
the  specimens.  It  is  all  humbug.  The  man  says,  '  Gorgeous  purple.' 
Here  is  what  he  calls  gorgeous  purple  !  He  says,  '  Exceedingly  beau- 
tiful.' That  is  his  idea  of  beauty  I  He  says,  '  Eemarkably  fine.'  That 
is  remarkably  Jine,  is  it?"  So  they  go  through  the  whole  catalogue, 
and  say,  ''There  was  the  promise,  and  here  is  the  fulfillment !" 

But  do  not  you  perceive  that  the  way  in  which  you  use  the  seed, 
the  manner  in  which  you  plant  it,  the  skill  that  you  exercise  in 
preparing  the  soil  to  receive  it,  and  the  season  that  you  have  to 
plant  it  in,  have  much  to  do  with  its  successful  growth  ?  There 
are  a  hundred  circumstances  which  will  have  a  great  deal  to  do  in 
determining  what  you  will  actually  get.  It  is  true  that  beautiful 
plants  might  have  been  produced  from  those  seeds.  They  were 
deserving  of  all  the  praise  that  was  bestowed  upon  them. 
There  was  no  deception  practiced  concerning  them.  They  might 
have  been  just  what  they  were  represented  to  be.  But  they  were 
not  what  they  might  have  been,  for  want  of  knowledge,  for  want 
of  skill,  and  for  want  of  the  right  adaptation  of  conditions  to  ends. 
There  be  many  persons  who  suppose,  because  Christianity  is  joy- 
producing,  that  when  they  become  Christians  they  will  necessarily 
be  joyful.  They  suppose  that  they  are  to  take  it  as  they  would 
nitrous  oxide  gas,  and  that  when  they  have  sucked  it  in  awhile,  they 
will  begin  to .  experience  the  inspiration  of  joy,  that  they  will  be 
lifted  up,  and  that  they  will  feel  delightfully.  There  are  those 
who  suppose  thai  there  is  a  divine  magnificent  intoxication  which 
God  gives  to  the  souls  of  his  children  ;  and  that  when  the  flash 
strikes  tliem  they  will  break  forth  into  rejoicings,  and  say,  "  Joy ! " 
«  Glory  ! "  "  Hallelujah  !"  "  How  happy  I  am  !  "  There  are  some 
who  have  such  an  experience  ;  but  how  long  does  it  last  ?  How 
quick  does  the  sudden  blaze  become  sudden  ashes  ! 

If  we  are  to  see  the  ideal  of  the  apostolic  teaching  on  this  point; 


116  GOD'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL. 

if  we  are  to  behold  the  results  of  a  true  Christian  faith  and  hope  ful- 
filled, it  must  be  by  taking  as  large  a  view  as  the  apostle  had,  and 
looking  at  the  conditions  of  joy,  and  the  relations  of  it  to  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.     It  is  said, 

"  Rejoice  in  the  Lord  always;  and  again  I  say,  Rejoice." 

It  is  not  simply  a  joy  that  comes  from  the  buoyancy  of  your 
natural  faculties.  There  is  in  that  very  phrase  "  Eejoice  in  the  Lord," 
the  opening  up  of  a  vast  psychology.    Let  us  look  a  little  at  it. 

He  that  takes  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  he  is  revealed  in  the  Gos- 
pels, and  in  the  teachings  of  his  servants  the  apostles,  will  find  that 
in  him  God  is  brought  near,  into  personal  relations  with  men,, 
and  into  sympathy  Avith  them.  That  immense  vagueness  which 
some  men  call  God  /  that  terrible  Power  ;  that  Fate  ;  that  unseen 
Being  who  looks  down  upon  the  world  apparently  with  supreme  in- 
difiercnce — (for,  though  ten  thousand  groans  go  up  tov/ard  God,  no 
sigh  comes  back  through  the  air  to  us  to  tell  us  that  there  is  sympathy 
there  ;  though  sorrows  sweep  over  the  world  as  equinoctial  storms 
by  day  and  by  night,  for  all  that  we  can  see  by  mere  sense  or 
natural  reason  God  is  as  calm  and  cold  as  the  upper  ether) — is  he 
a  reality  ?  Is  there  a  God  ?  If  so,  is  he  more  than  an  engineer  of 
this  vast  and  complicated  machine  ?  What  token  have  we  ?  What 
can  we  gather  from  nature  to  teach  us  of  God  ?  I  do  not  believe 
that  nature,  if  you  leave  out  the  experience  of  the  human  family 
(and  that  part  usually  is  left  out  when  men  study  Divine  nature 
to  find  Divinity)  can  teach  you  that  God  is  good.  I  think 
that  the  argument  stands  fair  hitherto,  that  either  there  is  a 
divided  empire,  or  there  is  a  capricious  Governor,  sometimes  good 
and  sometimes  bad.  Outside  of  revelation,  outside  of  the  clear  light 
which  we  derive  from  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  God  is  afar  off.  He  is 
brought  near  in  Christ  Jesus.  He  came  to  teach  us  what  God's  dis- 
positions are.  He  came  to  teach  us  that  God  is  a  Father,  and  that 
his  purposes  run  through  wide  circles,  and  extend  so  far  that  we  can 
no  more  judge  of  the  limits  of  them  than  we  could  judge  from  the 
corn-kernel  of  what  the  whole  harvest  would  be  if  we  had  never  seen 
one.  The  beginnings  are  apparent,  but  the  ultimate  ends  are 
obscure. 

Jesus  came  into  the  range  of  human  experience  to  bring  down 
in  himself,  in  his  life  and  in  his  teachings,  a  notion  of  God  that 
should  bring  him  near  to  men,  paternal,  friendly,  sympathetic.  We 
did  not  need  to  be  taught  that  he  was  powerful.  That,  material  nature 
teaches  us.  We  did  not  need  to  be  taught  that  he  was  wise.  The 
adjustment  of  affairs  in  the  universe  and  in  the  world  teaches  us  that. 
We  did  not  need  to  be  taught  that  God  was  vast.    That  is  what  we 


QOD'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL.  117 

mean  by  infinity.  But  that  he  has  a  heart  of  sympathy  with  men, 
and  that  he  is  in  such  a  sense  a  Parent  to  men  as  Ave  are  to  our 
children,  and  that  he  is  friendly  to  us  in  such  a  sense  as  we  are 
friendly  one  to  another — this  we  did  need  to  have  taught  to  us.  It 
was  hinted  at  by  other  teachers,  but  it  was  never  brought  out  in  such' 
a  way  by  any  other  one  as  it  has  been  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

In  Christ  there  is  developed  a  religion  which  arises  from  the  in- 
tercourse between  this  divine  Soul  and  our  human  souls.  There  is  a 
religion  which  is  not  a  mere  routine  of  actions.  There  are  myriads 
of  people  who  think  that  religion  consists  in  certain  actions — so 
many  prayers  said  ;  so  many  postures  taken  ;  so  many  symbols  em- 
ployed ;  so  many  ceremonies  kept ;  so  many  duties  performed. 
.  There  are  many  who  suppose  that  what  are  called  "religious  obser- 
vances "  are  religion.  That  was  very  largely  the  state  of  the  Jewish 
mind  at  the  time  Avlien  our  Saviour  came.  Spirituality  had  well- 
nigh  been  lost  out  of  sight,  and  men  had  pursued  a  round  of  obser- 
vances which  they  thought  satisfied  the  divine  requirements  ;  but 
Jesus  taught  that  God  is  a  spirit,  and  that  they  who  worship  him 
must  Avorship  him  by  the  spirit — by  thought,  by  imagination,  by 
emotion. 

There  is  no  purchase  by  our  own  merit — although  there  have 
been  thousands  who  have  supposed  that  God  had  rewards  of  virtue 
which  were  to  be  exchanged  with  men  for  certain  services  rendered. 
Jesus  came  to  teach  us  that  God  does  everything  out  of  his  own 
nature — that  everything  proceeds  from  divine  grace.  And  what 
work  men  have  made  of  the  interpretation  of  this  notion  !  I  think 
the  sweetest  thought,  the  very  center  idea,  of  the  revelation  of  the 
character  of  God,  to  me,  is  this :  that  he  does  everything  out  of  his 
•own  supreme  will.  There  is  no  one  thing  that  I  can  say  with  more 
heartiness,  or  that  has  in  it  more  echoes  of  joy,  than  "  Thy  will  be 
done."  If  anything  works  righteousness  in  me  or  in  you,  it  is  God. 
If  we  are  saved,  it  is  by  the  forgiving  and  sparing  mercy  of  God. 
What  did  Christ  teach  us  to  be  the  root  and  ground  of  hope  for  sal- 
vation, but  God's  generosity  ?  The  divine  nature  is  so  constructed 
that  it  loves  to  do  good ;  that  it  loves  to  recuperate  men ;  that  it 
loves  to  restore  that  Avhicli  sin  has  blurred  or  blasted.  God  loves  to 
bless  men  out  of  the  supremacy  of  a  love  which  carries  in  it  infinite 
benefaction  wherever  there  is  mental  blight,  throughout  the  heaven 
and  the  realms  of  the  universe.  Tlie  nature  of  God  is  fruitful  in 
generosity.  He  is  so  good  that  he  loves  to  do  good,  and  loves  to 
make  men  good,  and  loves  to  make  them  happy  by  making  them 
good.  He  loves  to  be  patient  with  them,  and  to  wait  for  them,  and 
to  pour  benevolence  upon  them,  because  that  is  his  nature. 


118  GOD^S  WILL  18  GOOD  WILL. 

Why  does  a  musician  sing  ?  To  please  himself.  It  is  the  very 
nature  of  his  organization  to  sing.  His  mind  loves  music.  Why 
does  a  painter  love  to  paint  ?  Because  painting  is  congenial  to  his 
very  organic  nature.  Why  does  the  orator  feel  the  joy  of  speech  ? 
Because  his  whole  nature  is  attuned  and  attempered  to  that  opera- 
tion. Why  is  it,  when  you  go  into  many  and  many  a  house,  that 
you  see  all  the  children  gathered  in  one  room  ?  Are  they  gathered 
around  about  the  young  ?  No.  Are  they  gathered  together  with 
those  that  are  full  of  frolic?  No.  They  are  gathered  around 
tjhe  aged.  It  is  the  grandmother  who  sits  in  her  chair,  with 
her  nice  frilled  cap,  white  as  snow,  on  her  head,  and  her  specta- 
cles lifted  upon  her  brow.  The  little  children  play  about  her 
chair.  They  can  hardly  be  coaxed  away  from  her.  Why  are  they 
all  drawn  to  her  ?  Because  she  makes  them  happy.  Why  does  she 
make  them  happy  ?  Because  her  thoughts  are  all  serene.  She  does 
not  do  it  on  purpose.  It  is  her  pleasure  to  do  it.  She  just  pours 
out  of  herself  the  music  of  harmony,  and  it  fills  the  child  with  joy. 
It  is  her  nature  to  do  it. 

Why  does  Sir  Curmudgeon,  who  lives  in  his  castle,  when  his 
door  has  been  opened  by  the  hand  of  want  coming  in  from  the 
storm,  say,  "  Get  out — get  out — you  vagabond !  I  do  not  want  to 
hear.  Never  come  here  again  "?  He  does  it  because  it  is  his  nature  to 
do  it.  He  does  it  because  he  feels  like  it.  When  another  man  sees 
want,  why  do  his  eyes  flow  down  with  tears  ?  Why  does  he  instantly 
feel,  "  I  adopt  this  want ;  I  will  bear  this  burden  "?  Why  do  men 
watch  all  day  and  all  night  at  the  door  of  want,  and  give,  and  give? 
and  continue  to  give  ?  Why  are  they  happy  in  giving  ?  Is  it 
because  of  any  agreement  or  bargain  that  they  have  entered  into  ? 
No,  they  are  acting  out  their  nature.  That  is  the  way  their  soul 
runs. 

Why  does  God  love  ?  Because  it  is  his  nature  to  love.  Why  is 
he  patient  ?  Because  it  is  his  nature.  Why  is  he  forgiving  ?  Be- 
cause that  is  his  nature.  Why  does  he  promise  everything  to  you 
witkout  condition  ?  Because  he  is  just  so  generous.  Why  does  he 
love  you,  though  you  are  unworthy  of  love?  Because  that  is  just 
the  way  that  the  mind  of  God  acts.  And  that  this  might  be  made 
manifest,  he  made  the  most  magnificent  display  of  it  in  this  world 
in  the  Son  of  God,  who  came  to  live,  to  love,  to  suifer  and  to  die  for 
men.  But  that  was  only  a  faint  representation.  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  say  of  the  royalty  of  that  which  is  so  vast  and  glorious  in  the 
spheres  above,  that  it  cannot  be  made  known  in  time  and  in  cur 
horizon  here.  God  is  in  himself  so  generous  and  good  that  all  he 
does  throughout  the  universe  he  does  to  please  himself. 


GOD'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL.  119 

When  I  am  happy,  I  smile;  and  I  smile  to  please  myself.  When 
I  feel  impelled  to  sing,  I  sing ;  and  I  sing  to  please  myself.  I  sing 
to  satisfy  a  sense  of  song,  and  smile  to  satisfy  a  sense  of  pleasure. 
And  God  is  loving  and  merciful  and  long-suifering  to  please  a  sense 
in  him  of  love  and  mercy  and  long-suffering.  He  is  generous  toward 
men  because  he  has  a  heart  of  generosity.  His  heart  is  filled  full, 
from  top  to  bottom,  with  this  feeling.  There  is  no  computing  the 
height  or  depth  or  length  or  breadth  of  the  divine  nature.  Its 
amplitude  is  absolutely  immeasurable  and  inconceivable,  and  out 
of  that  grand,  glowing  center  of  the  divine  nature  it  is  that  all 
goodness,  all  kindness,  all  beneficence,  all  faith,  all  hope,  and  all 
love  are  given  forth. 

God  does  these  things  to  please  himself.  And,  oh,  what  a 
shame  it  is  that  God  has  been  so  slandered  by  those  who  thought 
they  loved  him !  Oh,  what  a  perversion  there  has  been  of  the 
nature  of  God !  What  clumsy  machines  have  been  invented  with 
which  to  mar  and  blur  the  outline  and  ideal  and  interior  of  this 
glorious  notion  of  an  all-loving  God,  who  brings  out  of  himself,  out 
of  his  nature,  infinite  atonement,  infinite  reconciliation,  and  in- 
finite opportunities,  and  whose  mercies  are  graces  ! 

Consider,  then,  that  in  Jesus  Christ  we  have  brought  near  to  us 
a  God  personal  and  sympathetic,  in  distinction  from  a  God  mechani- 
cal, afar  off,  cold,  unsympathetic,  and  engineering.  We  have 
brought  near  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ  a  God  whose  nature  it  is  to  be 
bountiful,  tender,  sweet,  beautiful,  so  that  when  we  begin  to  see  the 
traits  that  are  in  him,  they  draAv  out  the  same  traits  in  us.  We 
love  because  he  has  loved  us. 

If  you  go  into  Stein  way's  manufactory  or  ware-room,  and  strike 
certain  chords  of  one  of  the  powerful  instruments,  the  chords 
of  all  the  other  instruments,  though  they  are  covered  up,  and  ap- 
parently mute,  will  sound.  Such  are  the  correspondencies  which 
exist  between  them,  such  is  the  sympathy  which  is  communicated 
from  one  to  another  by  the  air,  that  when  one  vibrates  they  all 
vibrate.  Though  the  sound  be  low  and  almost  inaudible,  it  is 
there. 

When  the  grandeur,  the  beauty  and  the  love  of  the  divine  nature 
are  presented  to  a  man,-  they  draw  some  response  from  every  part 
of  his  nature  which  corresponds  to  that  which  is  presented.  So  it 
is  that  there  begins  to  be  through  this  conception  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus,  a  piety  which  is  in  the  nature  of  a  personal  communion  or 
affiliation.  The  hearts  of  men  are  thus  drawn  toward  the  heart 
of  God,  and  there  begins  to  be  an  interplay  between  them. 

This  is  the  basis  of  reconciliation  with  God.    Not  that  he  is  re* 


120  GOD'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL. 

concilcd  to  ns,  but  that  we  are  reconciled  to  liim.  God's  everlasthior 
nature  is  that  of  forgiveness.  As  soon  as  the  soul  j^erceives  such  a 
God,  and  moves  toward  him  in  real  moral  consciousness,  it  begins 
to  experience  what  is  called  faith — that  faith  which  works  by  love. 
And  just  as  soon  as  we  accept  this  view  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  this 
centralization  of  the  universe  at  the  focal  point  of  love,  just  so 
soon  the  universe  begins  to  be  filled  with  God.  Wherever  his  power 
and  government  are,  there  is  divinity ;  and  wherever  there  is  divin- 
ity, there  is  the  nature  of  God.  Christ  has  so  built  up  the  concep- 
tion of  God  the  Father  that  wherever  anything  makes  suggestion  to 
us,  it  is  suggestion  of  infinite  and  inconceivable  goodness,  love  and 
mercy. 

I  would  not  have  you  paint  God  as  all  light,  without  shadows ; 
for  I  perceive  that  the  infliction  of  pain  is  a  part  of  the  divine  scheme, 
and  is  not  inconsistent  with  God's  character.  I  do  not  hate  my 
child  because  I  punish  him.  The  schoolmaster  does  not  hate  the 
urchin  because  he  whips  him.     Pain  and  penalty  are  remedial. 

I  expressed,  last  Sunday  morning,  my  abhorrence  of  the  idea 
that  God  should  make  pain  for  the  sake  of  making  pain.  I  do  not 
take  back  a  single  word  of  it.  I  would  rather  convert  every  word 
into  thunder  to  express  my  indignation  against  the  teaching  that 
there  is  a  Being  in  heaven  who  ever  gave  one  pang  for  the  sake  of 
giving  that  pang,  or  who  continues  pain  for  the  sake  of  continuing 
pain.  Such  qualities  as  some  attribute  to  God  are  our  definition  of 
a  fiend.  But  to  say  that  pain  may  be  created  in  order  that  it  may 
work  out  good,  and  that  it  may  cooperate  with  love  and  patience,  is 
in  accordance  with  our  experience.  God  is  a  God  of  goodness  and 
gentleness  and  patience ;  but  he  is  a  God  that  will  by  no  means  clear 
the  guilty.  Glory  be  to  his  name  for  that.  He  will  pierce  men,  he 
will  give  them  pain,  he  will  make  them  sufier,  that  through  suffer- 
ing they  may  come  to  that  which  they  would  not  take  through  joy 
or  love.  These  pain-bearing  influences  are  a  part  of  the  evidence  of 
the  moral  government  of  God.  They  are  a  part  of  that  Avhich  is 
taught  and  that  which  is  experienced  in  life. 

I  seem  to  you,  probably,  thus  far,  to  have  only  been  discoursing 
upon  the  relations  of  men  to  Christ.  The  bearing  of  this  subject  of 
joy-producing  will  appear  when  I  say  that  there  is  no  other  power 
that  has  such  a  regulative  influejice  as  love ;  and  that  if  we  are 
brought  by  the  disclosure  which  Christ  makes  of  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  into  a  personal  relationship  of  love  with  him,  then  we  are 
brought  into  that  condition  out  of  which  will  spring  love  by  and  by^ 
spontaneously,  fruitfully,  abundantly. 

Souls  in  this  world  are  never  made  to  act  in  solitude.    We  might 


Q0W8  WILL  18  GOOD  WILL.  121 

as  well  put  a  harp  into  a  room  and  expect  it  to  make  music  if  there 
were  no  harper  there  as  to  expect  that  any  individual  soul  will  act 
itself  out  and  manifest  that  which  is  good  or  bad  if  there  is  no  other 
Boul  to  act  upon  it,  or  to  act  in  concert  with  it.  We  are  awakened 
to  ourselves,  often,  only  by  the  action  of  those  who  are  round  about 
us.  Under  the  general  constitution  of  things  men  are  aroused,  de- 
veloped, educated;  but  of  all  the  influences  which  stimulate,  arouse 
and  ripen,  none  are  as  potential  as  love.  And  yet,  though  it  be  re- 
straining, stimulating,  constructive,  it  is  so  in  spite  of  limitations, 
the  very  announcement  of  which  would  seem  to  make  the  thought 
of  love  almost  impossible.  For,  in  many  men  love  is  struggling  for 
liberty  to  live.  In  many  men  love  is  as  a  fire  when  it  is  attempted 
to  kindle  grass  and  leaves  with  a  shower  in  the  heavens  beating 
down  upon  the  flame  and  threatening  to  extinguish  it.  Love  is  as 
a  bii'd  singing  in  the  thicket,  over  which  hovers  a  hawk,  and  behind 
which  sits  the  owl,  both  waiting  to  end  the  song.  Love,  in  this 
world,  lives  under  conditions  which  every  moment  threaten  its  con- 
stitution, and  its  very  life.  Love  in  this  world  is  as  the  orange-tree 
seeking  to  grow  in  Greenland.  There  is  not  summer  enough,  and 
there  is  a  great  deal  too  much  winter.  In  its  own  land  the  orange 
is  always  in  leaf,  and  always  in  blossom,  and  always  with  fruit  grow- 
ing and  ripening  on  its  boughs.  But  as  an  artificial  and  curious 
thing  in  far  northern  latitudes  it  is  seldom  that  it  shows  any  fruit 
that  is  ripe.  It  struggles  to  live,  and  cannot  blossom  forth  into 
beauty,  or  develop  into  ample  fruitfulness.  The  whole  year  attacks 
it,  and  is  its  enemy. 

Love,  as  men  are  situated  in  this  world,  is  weakened  by  our  very 
ideality.  It  is  with  love  as  it  is  with  our  thought  of  friends.  When 
we  first  behold  them  we'exaggerate  our  conception  of  what  thev 
are ;  but  by  and  by  life  wears  away  our  ideal  of  them  to  the  bare 
reality ;  and  then  comes  discontent.  Love  is  chafed  by  conflict.  It 
is  marred  by  temper  and  passion.  There  are  ten  thousand  influ- 
ences which  spring  up  to  disfigure  it.  It  is  full  of  imperfections. 
It  does  not  answer  to  our  imagination  of  it.  It  does  not  answer  to 
the  ideal  which  Ave  have  formed  of  it.  It  does  not  answer  to  our  in- 
tellectual conception  of  it.  Selfishness  creates  warts  on  it.  Avarice 
almost  undermines  it.  The  appetites  stain  it,  and  destroy  its  beauty. 
And  yet,  love  struggles  against  all  these  things,  and  in  spite  of  them 
all  it  is  a  truer  center  of  self-government  than  any  other  that  the 
world  knows. 

There  are  men  who  are  so  organized  as  to  pride  that  they  are 
discordant  with  themselves ;  but  love  can  harmonize  them.  Love 
ifi  the  regnant  harmonizing  center.     Eeason  cannot  so  bring  into 


122  GOB'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL. 

harmony  every  part  of  a  man's  nature,  and  make  liira  content,  as 
love  can.  No  man  can  be  at  peace  with  himself  who  has  not  love. 
Woe  is  he  who  is  not  conscious  of  one  great  faculty  which  expels 
all  enemies  ;  of  one  great  experience  that  satisfies  every  part  of  his 
nature ;  of  that  love  to  which  honor  and  conscience  and  pride  and 
selfishness  all  bow  down  and  do  obeisance  !  There  are  hours  when 
men  feel  it.  Oh,  that  it  could  continue!  Then  the  world  would 
be  no  care  or  burden.  Then  storms  would  be  as  calms.  There  is 
an  experience  of  men  in  regard  to  loving  in  some  one  or  other  direc- 
tion that  moves  the  center  of  the  soul.  That  is  the  element  which 
harmonizes.  Thousands  of  thousands  have  had  this  harmonizing, 
reigning  element  of  love. 

Now,  consider  what  love  must  be  to  Jesus,  in  whom  everything 
is  perfect,  to  our  conception.  Bring  home  to  a  man's  consciousness 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  let  him  have  faith  enough  to  limn  the  feat- 
ures and  portray  the  divine  beauty  that  is  in  him,  and  it  will  in- 
spire in  him  a  love  which  shall  transcend  all  others.  And  it  will 
have  more  ideality  in  it  than  any  earthly  love  can  have.  The 
imagination  will  play  more  freely  and  more  fruitfully  every 
day,  and  every  day  it  will  be  more  admirable.  Imagination  is 
the  root  of  faith.  It  is  the  foundation  of  the  conception  of  the 
invisible.  It  makes  it  possible  for  a  man  to  bring  near  to  him  the 
character  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  It  gives  endless  variety  to  the 
thought  of  the  divine  nature.  No  man  ever  became  tired  of  looking 
at  the  beauty  and  glory  conceived  of  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The 
idea  of  him  will  grow  stronger  because  he  is  invisible. 

Many  say,  "  You  worship  only  your  conception,  your  idea, 
of  God."  I  say  that  ideas  are  more  real  than  things  are.  Things 
appeal  to  the  body  :  ideas  to  honor,  manhood,  the  soul  itself.  And 
yet,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  there  would  be  much  in  me  which 
would  be  gratified  if  I  could  once  see  Christ.  Sometimes,  as  I  have 
lain  in  summer  with  the  blinds  closed  to  keep  out  the  heat,  and  as 
through  some  little  crevice  in  the  window  a  ray  of  solar  light  has 
found  its  way  into'  the  room,  I  have  thought,  in  my  meditation, 
"  If  Christ  would  descend  but  as  a  beam  of  light  that  I  might  see 
him,  it  would  be  such  a  help  to  my  senses  !  It  would  be  a  point  for 
Tnv  memory  to  dart  back  to."  I  have  sometimes  felt,  *•'  Oh,  that  I 
could  hear  his  voice  I"  And  I  have  listened  at  night ,  I  have  lis- 
toned  in  hours  of  sorrow ;  and  I  have  heard  nothing.  I  have  called^ 
and  none  has  answered.  I  have  reached  out  imploring  hands,  and 
nothing  took  them.  T  hav^-  said  'My  Lord  and  my  God,  if  thou 
ai't,  speak  to  me !"— and  <:hert  haj-  Deen  no  response.  And  yet  out 
s>f  these  ^jours  1  have  come,   feeling  Btill  that  a  silent  and  invisible 


GOB'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL,  123 

God  can  be  more  to  me,  taking  life  all  tlirongh,  than  if  he  were 
actually  present  and  visible  in  a  bodily  form.  I  take  hold  of  the 
invisible  by  more  sides  than  I  do  of  the  visible. 

My  father  lived  ,  my  mother  passed  on  before ;  but  through  all 
my  life,  though  I  lived  with  him,  and  loved  him,  and  was  in- 
structed and  guided  by  him,  my  father  was  not  so  much  to  me  as 
my  mother.  Her  I  created;  while  he  was  created  for  me.  Not 
able  to  conceive  of  an  invisible  friend !  Oh,  it  is  not  when  your 
children  are  with  you,  it  is  not  when  you  see  and  hear  them, 
that  they  are  most  to  you  ;  it  is  when  the  sad  assembly  is  gone  ;  it 
is  when  the  daisies  have  resumed  their  growing  again  in  the  place 
where  the  little  form  was  laid ;  it  is  when  you  have  carried  your 
children  out,  and  said  farewell,  and  come  home  again,  and  day  and 
night  are  full  of  sweet  memories ;  it  is  when  summer  and  winter 
are  full  of  touches  and  suggestions  of  them  ;  it  is  when  you  cannot 
look  up  toward  God  without  thinking  of  them,  nor  look  down 
toward  yourself  and  not  think  of  them :  it  is  when  they  have  gone 
out  of  your  arms,  and  are  living  to  you  only  by  the  power  of  the 
imagination,  that  they  are  the  most  to  you.  The  invisible  children 
are  the  realest  children,  the  sweetest  children,  the  truest  children,  the 
children  that  touch  our  hearts  as  no  hands  of  flesh  ever  could  touch 
them.  And  do  you  tell  me  that  we  cannot  cannot  conceive  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  because  he  is  invisible  ? 

Here,  then,  are  the  stores  of  rejoicing.  ■^ 

"  Rejoice  in  the  Lord." 

You  have  such  a  sense  of  the  divine  governorship  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  you  have  such  a  sense  of  God  brought  near  in  the  royalty  of 
his  generous  nature ;  you  have  such  a  sense  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
your  Saviour ;  he  is  so  near  to  you,  and  so  present,  that  the  power 
of  love  is  excited  in  you ;  love  so  regulates  your  soul,  so  satisfies 
your  reason,  your  imagination,  and  all  the  passions  do  so  naturally 
bow  down  to  the  reign  of  love — especially  love  inspired  toward  the 
invisible,  the  spiritual  and  the  perfect — that  all  the  conditions  are 
now  present  out  of  which  come  peace  and  joy — for  peace  is  but  the 
stem  and  the  unfolding  leaves  of  that  plant  whose  blossom  is  joy. 

Men  ask  me,  "  If  this  be  the  portion  of  Christian  believers, 
why  is  there  not  more  joy  in  the  church  ?"  Because  you  do  not 
know  how  to  plant  seeds.  You  do  not  know  how  to  cultivate  these 
flowers.  They  are  real  seeds,  and  the  flowers  are  beautiful,  and  the 
plant  bears  blessed  fruit  to  those  Avho  know  how  to  give  it  proper 
culture. 

If  you  have  the  faith  of  Christ  and  heaven  and  God  near  to  you ; 
if  you  love  so  that  all  the  parts  of  your  -being  are  pervaded  with  a 


J  24  GOB'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL. 

sense  of  these  things ;  if  the  affluence  of  God  reaches  down  to  yon, 
and  you  open  your  soul  and  let  in  the  consciousness  of  Christ 
present  with  you,  then  you  will  have  joy,  and  you  will  have  that 
peace  which  passeth  all  understanding. 

"  Oh,"  says  one,  "  I  am  so  harassed  with  cares !  I  might  be  joy- 
ful if  I  had  not  so  much  care." 

"  Casting  all  your  care  upon  him ;  for  he  careth  for  you." 

There  is  provision  made  in  Christ  for  care. 

"  But  I  have  such  grief !     God  has  dealt  with  me  severely ;  and 

a  wounded  heart  cannot  rejoice." 

"  Now  no  chastening  for  the  present  seemeih  to  be  joyous,  but  grievous; 
nevertheless,  afterward  it  yieldeth  the  peaceable  fruit  of  righteousness." 

If  the  earth  had  sense  and  sensibility,  when  the  spade  oj^ened  it 
it  would  cry,  "Oh  !  why  art  thou  wounding  me  ?"  But  in  that  open 
earth  I  drop  handfuls  of  seed,  and  I  cover  them  up ;  and  by  and  by 
I  go  to  that  place  again,  and  itis  all  grown  over  with  sightly,  beau- 
tiful stalks,  which  are  covered  with  blossoms.  Does  the  earth 
mourn  now  ? 

God  is  opening  the  furrow  in  you  and  putting  in  seeds.     It  is 
application  to  you  now  ;   at  present  it  does  not  seem  to  you  joyous ; 
^       but  afterward  it  will  j)rodnce  in  you  the  peaceable  fruit  of  right- 
eousness, when  it  has  grown  and  blossomed,  and  is  covered  with 
fruit. 

"  Is  it  possible  for  a  man  who  is  in  poverty  aad  sickness  to  be 
ioyful  ?"     The  apostle  says, 

"  I  can  do  all  things  through  Christ  which  strengtheneth  me."    '*  I  know 
how  both  to  abound  and  to  suffer  need." 

There  is  a  grace  of  God  through  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  that  can 
sustain  you  in  all  the  inequalities  of  life ;  that  can  make  solitude 
tolerable ;  that  can  turn  back  all  the  sharp  points  of  temptation. 
There  is  a  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  that  can  make  dis- 
appointment itself  contented;  that  can  so  cover  the  soul  with 
the  atmosphere  of  peace  that  it  shall  pass  all  understanding. 
No  man  shall  be  able  to  tell  his  neighbor  what  is  the  meaning 
of  that  strange  peace.  There  is  a  grace  of  God  which  shall 
enable  you  to  live  with  joy,  and  which  shall  enable  you  to  triumph 
m  that  hour  when  you  are  brought  face  to  face  with  your  best 
friend,  Death,  that  shall  take  you  Avliere  you  shall  hear  the  thunder 
of  that  choral  song  which,  though  not  far  from  us,  is  yet  inaudible — 
/  which,  though  we  cannot  hear  it,  like  the  ocean  itself  murmurs  and 
rolls  upon  our  shoi'es. 

Then,  Jicjoice  in  the  Lord ;  and  again  I  say,  Rejoice. 


tfOD'/S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL.  125 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  draw  near  to  thee,  thou  that  art  unkno-vm,  whom  the  heavens  do 
hide,  whom  we  cannot  see  in  the  flesh  and  live.  We  draw  near  to  thee  by 
that  new  and  Uving  way— Jesus.  We  draw  near  to  thee,  because  he  hath 
taught  us  of  thee,  and  because  we  behold  in  his  life  a.nd  disposition  those 
verv  elements  of  thv  nature  which  it  was  hard  for  us  to  discern— which  were 
gathered  but  imperfectly  from  anything  in  nature.  Now,  since  thou  bast  been 
pleased  to  present  thyself  to  us  incarnate — a  manifestation  of  God  to  help 
our  understanding,  and  to  give  us  the  seed  of  better  thought— we  are 
touched  by  thy  loving  Spirit,  and  are  able  to  kindle  in  our  souls  a  higher 
and  brighter  view  of  thy  nature.  And  we  rejoice  that  it  is  such  a  one  as 
fills  us  with  confidence,  and  that  we  long  to  trust  such  a  God  as  thou  art 
made  known  to  be.  Now,  thou  hast  by  love  taught  us  how  to  translate  even 
things  seemingly  terrible.  Now,  thou  hast  by  the  power  of  example  in  Jesus 
robbed  us  of  all  thoughts  of  evil  and  of  fear.  Though  thou  art  a  consuming 
lire,  as  thou  didst  appear  to  thy  servant  Moses  of  old  in  the  burning  bush ; 
though  thou  art  a  God  of  truth  and  of  justice,  that  will  by  no  means  clear 
the  guilty,  we  believe  that  the  mighty  enginery  of  time  and  of  the  eternal 
world  are  for  the  development  of  goodness  in  men,  and  that  thou  art  the 
Father,  bringing  up  thy  children  into  the  image  and  likeness  of  thyself, 
and  that  thou  wilt  not  suffer  sin  in  them,  but  wilt  cleanse  them  from  it, 
and  wilt  redeem  them  from  its  power,  and  make  them  kings  and  priests 
unto  God. 

Grant,- we  pray  thee,  that  we  may  not  be  of  that  number  who  believe 
not;  who  tiirn  away  toward  darkness;  who  seek  but  to  hide  themselves; 
who  do  not  feel  the  need  of  Ught,  nor  love  it,  nor  desire  it ;  who  herd  with 
swine,  and  eat  the  husks  that  they  devour.  May  we  be  of  those  who  re- 
pentantly turn  back  to  thee  for  the  salvation  of  their  souls.  We  pray  that 
we  may  behold  thee  in  such  light  and  glory  that  all  things  to  us  shall  ac- 
claim thee  God. 

We  beseech  of  thee,  O  God,  that  we  may  not  go  heedless  into  the  great  and 
unknown  world,  when  thy  providence  is  full  of  warnings,  and  when  thy  love 
stands  pleading  that  we  will  accept  thee  and  thy  mercy,  and  that  we  will  not 
venture  our  souls  upon  all  the  risks  and  perils  of  the  future. 

O  Lord  Jesus,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  lift  thyself  up  to  us  as  the  Chief 
among  ten  thousand,  and  the  One  altogether  lovely,  that  we  may  be  won  to 
thy  service,  and  to  thy  disposition,  that  we  may  become  the  children  of  God, 
and  that  we  may  live  in  this  life  in  the  midst  of  its  cares,  and  under  its 
burdens,  and  in  its  sorrows,  and  still  be  strong  by  the  inspiration  of  thy 
Spirit. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  forgive  us  whatever  has  been  offensive  to  thee. 
Every  day  we  know  that  we  sully  the  purity  of  our  hearts.  Every  day  we 
fall  short  of  known  duties.  Every  day  we  have  to  depend  upon  that  same 
patience  wtiich  thus  far  hath  borne  us,  and  upon  that  forgiveness  which  hath 
been  our  salvation. 

Cleanse  us,  we  pray  thee,  not  only  from  the  commission  of  sin,  but 
from  the  love  of  sin.  May  we  learn  so  to  carry  ourselves  that  with  all  our 
heart  and  mind  and  soul  and  strength  we  may  serve  thee,  and  serve  thee 
in  the  spirit  of  true  loving. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  comfort  any  who  are  in  circumstances 
of  trial.  Lift  the  light  of  thy  countenance  upon  any  who  are  sitting  in 
darkness.  Open  the  way,  if  there  be  any  who  are  perplexed  and  know  not 
What  to  do.    If  there  be  mourners  in  thy  presence,  who  mourn  ovei  their 


126  GOD'S  WILL  IS  GOOD  WILL. 

transgressions,  be  thou  found  of  them  a  pardoning  God.  If  there  be  those 
who  are  burdened  with  oares,  may  they  be  sustained  by  thy  providence.  By 
thy  Spirit  may  they  be  able  to  lift  themselves  above  the  horizon  where  care 
doth  live.  May  they  look  to  those  other  lands,  far  above,  and  see  what 
eternal  joys  await  them. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  make  us  strong  in  the  day  of  adversity,  and  able 
to  bear.  May  we  be  clad  la  all  the  armor  of  God,  both  offensive  and  de- 
fensive, and  be  prepared  to  meet  every  exigency,  and  yet  not  be  over- 
thrown— to  be  found  still  standing  when  the  battle  is  over,  and  able  to 
stand. 

We  pray,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  wilt  grant  more  and  more  unity 
of  the  heart  and  fellowship  of  the  Spirit  through  Jesus  Christ.  May  the 
hope  of  salvation  be  more  fruitful  in  us  in  godliness  and  truth  and 
charity. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  thy  blessing  may  rest,  this  day,  upon 
all  who  preach  thy  truth,  of  whatever  name  they  may  be.  May  thy  Spirit 
be  with  them  to  help  their  infirmity ;  to  cleanse  their  eyes,  that  they  may 
see  more  clearly ;  to  strengthen  their  hearts,  and  fill  them  with  divine  power, 
that  they  may,  out  of  their  own  living  consciousness,  preach  a  living  Christ. 
And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  unite  thy  x^eople  more  and  more.  May 
they  be  united  around  about  thy  love,  by  its  attractive  power  and  sym- 
pathy. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  spread  the  light  of  truth  throughout  all  our  land. 
Bless  schools,  and  academies,  and  colleges,  and  all  seminaries  ot  learning. 
We  pray  that  this  great  people  may  have  knowledge  spread  among  them ; 
and  may  knowledge  carry  virtue;  and  may  vir;ue  draw  its  supply  from 
piety ;  and  may  all  this  people  be  cleansed  from  filth,  and  from  immorality, 
and  from  ignorance,  and  from  superstition,  and  from  avarice,  and  from 
hardness  of  heart,  and  from  corruption ;  and  may  they  be  a  people  redeemed 
of  God  unto  good  works. 

We  pray  for  the  nations  of  the  earth.  May  violence  no  longer  rule. 
Speedily  bring  in  that  day  of  peace  when  war  shall  have  no  echo.  Bring  in 
that  day  when  superstition  shall  no  longer  torment  with  fear,  nor  ignorance 
bring  weakness,  and  so  oppression.  Oh,  may  the  people  be  educated,  and 
brought  into  a  practical  and  saving  knowledge  of  God,  and  be  lifted  up  into 
the  privileges  that  are  their  own.  May  all  thy  promises  which  respect  this 
world  at  last  begin  to  march ;  and  may  we  behold  that  God  is  coming  forth 
for  the  salvation  of  the  whole  earth.    Even  so,  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  forever  and  ever.    Amen. 

PEAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON". 

Our  Father,  wilt  thou  bless  the  word  which  we  have  spoken,  and  grant 
that  it  may  do  us  good  in  our  innermost  souls.  Dear  Lord,  we  are  poor, 
and  we  need  thy  riches.  K  thou  lovest  us,  Jesus,  why  are  we  so  tar  .from 
thy  bosom?  Why  dost  thou  suffer  us  to  stumble?  We  are  parents,  and  we 
watch  our  children  so  that  they  do  not  go  out  of  our  sight :  dost  thou  so 
watch  us?  We  watch  them  that  we  may  save  them  from  danger,  or  cure 
their  harms:  dost  thou  so  watch  us?  Thou  who  art  the  Lover  of  the 
sparrow,  and  art  grieved  to  see  it  fall,  are  we  not  better  than  many  spar- 
rows? Fold  us  to  thy  heart,  and  grant  that  we  may  have  communicated  to 
us  the  consciousness  of  it.  Oh,  how  poor  we  are  in  ourselves  I  Oh,  how  rich 
we  might  be  in  thee!  Rain  down  upon  us  the  light  of  God.  Pour  from 
thyself  streams  of  light  and  life  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  bring  us, 
at  last,  amid  tears,  beyond  sighing  and  sorrow,  beyond  sinning,  into  the 
land  of  rest.    And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  glory,  forever.     Amen. 


VIII. 

The  Conflicts  of  Life. 


INVOCATION. 

Grant  unto  us,  this  morning,  our  Fatlier,  the  recognition  of  thy  presence. 
In  thee  is  all  blessing.  Our  hope  and  our  yearning  are  satisfied  when  we  be- 
hold thee.  Bring  near  the  sacred  vision.  Lift  up  those  who  are  weak,  and 
cannot  behold  thee,  and  strengthen  them  that  they  may  see  thee.  And  fill 
all  with  rejoicing  who  turn  their  eyes  upon  thee  this  moniing.  May  we 
feel  like  children  gathered  home  to  rejoice  in  our  Father's  house  together. 
And  may  the  consciousness  of  thy  forgiving  love,  and  the  greatness  of  thy 
mercy,  fill  us  with  hope  and  trust.  May  it  awake  in  us  fellowship ;  and  re- 
joicing in  each  other,  may  we  be  united  in  our  earthly  affection  and  in  a 
heavenly  love,  while  yet  we  linger  upon  these  mortal  shores.  Bless  the  sei'- 
vices  of  the  sanctuary — the  reading  of  thy  Word ;  the  speaking  therefrom ; 
the  fellowship  of  song ;  the  communion  of  prayer.  Bless  our  homes,  and  our 
enjoyments  therein,  this  day.  We  pray  that  thy  kingdom  may  be  established 
in  the  midst  of  us,  in  our  hearts,  so  that  all  of  us,  this  day,  may  dwell  with 
thee.  We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  tlie  Beloved,  to  whom,  with  the  Father  and 
the  Spirit,  shall  ))e  pi-aises  evermore.    Amen. 


THE  COIFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 


"  Finally,  my  brethren,  be  strong  in  the  Lord,  and  in  the  power  of  his 
might.  Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  stand  against 
the  wiles  of  the  devil.  For  we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but 
against  principalities,  against  poVers,  against  tbe  rulers  of  the  darkness  of 
this  world,  against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places.  Wherefore  take 
unto  you  the  whole  armor  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  withstand  in  the 
evil  day,  and  having  done  all,  to  stand.  Stand  therefore  having  your  loins 
girt  abouD  with  truth,  and  having  on  the  breastplate  of  righteousaess;  and 
your  feet  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the  Gospel  of  peace;  above  all, 
taking  the  shield  of  faith,  wherewith  ye  shall  be  able  to  quench  all  the  fiery 
darls  of  the  wicked.  And  take  the  helmet  of  salvation,  and  the  sR'ord  of 
the  Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of  God :  praying  always  with  all  prayer  and 
supplication  in  the  Spirit,  and  watching  thereunto  with  all  perseverance 
and  supplication  for  all  saints."— Eph.  VI.,  10-18. 


The  questions  which  are  coming  up  in  modern  days  are  but  the 
details  and  specifications  of  those  great  questions  or  views  which 
the  apostle  and  the  prophets  held  in  their  time.  As  one,  looking 
out  upon  the  meadows  from  his  window,  says,  "  They  are  all  covered 
with  flowers  ;  grass  abounds  in  them  all ;  the  spring  has  brought 
forth  its  bounteous  results;"  but  afterward,  the  botanist  comes, 
and  goes  into  the  field,  and  searches  out  the  individual  plants  which 
go  to  make  up  this  general  effect,  discovers  their  habits,  classifies 
them,  and  tells  the  peculiar  habits  of  each  :  and  as  the  second  man 
only  carries  into  detail  that  which  the  first  man  observed  in  the 
general  ;  so  the  specific  of  human  nature,  the  organization  of  man, 
the  laws  of  that  organization,  the  economy  by  which  he  is  placed  in 
such  a  world  as  this,  and  the  laws  of  Avisdom  by  which  he  shall 
carry  himself  throughout,  are  modern  studies  ;  but  they  are  only 
studies  in  detail  and  in  specific  of  the  same  great  field  of  truth 
which  was  made  known  by  the  apostles  and  to  the  prophets  of  old. 

There  is  no  language  Avhose  literature  is  not  marked  conspicu- 
ously with  this  one  universal  observation — conflict,  conflict.  Wher- 
ever there  has  been  a  singer — a  poet ;  wherever  there  has  been  a 
prophet — a  teacher  ;  wherever  there  has  been  an  observer — a  philos- 
opher, there  has  been  just  one  uniform  and  universal  observation 
on  this  subject ;  and  the  whole  creation  groans  and  travails  in  pain . 

Sunday  Morning,  April  28,  1872.    Lesson  :  Hebrxws,  XII.,  1-U.    Htuns  (PlymouU 

Collection):  Nus.  6C8, 905,  725. 


130  THB  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

"  Why  should  it  be  so  ?"  say  some.     "  What  is  the  origin  of  evil  ?" 
say  others.    And  various  answers  have  vexed  various  schools. 

I  do  not  propose  to  go  into  these  things  at  all.  I  do  not  even 
I  propose  to  glance  back  and  ask  what  is  their  origin.  I  accept  the 
J  fact  that  the  whole  world  has  been  a  scene,  so  far  back  as  we  have 
known  anything  about  it,  of  conflict,  and  that  all  men  are  called  into 
life  to  take  some  part  in  this  universal  conflict.  Life  is  a  struggle 
with  various  intermissions  and  with  various  emphases  of  pain  or 
various  experiences  of  development  jvith  alternations  of  victory. 
But  human  life  is  generically  a  scene  of  vast  conflict — a  struggle. 
i  No  man  comes  into  it  but  to  take  part,  as  a  soldier,  in  the  campaign 
which  is  laid  out  before  him.  When  one  is  born  into  this  world  a 
child,  he  is  born  ignorant  of  everything.  All  material  laws  are 
against  him,  though  they  were  made  for  him.  He  is  liable,  at  every 
step,  to  be  crushed  by  not  knowing  things.  Nor  can  any  one  at 
once  bring  him  into  the  knowledge  and  harmony  of  those  material 
laws  on  which  health  and  happiness  depend.  He  is  to  find  them 
out  after  much  rubbing  and  stumbling  and  bruising  conflict.  The 
simplest  laws  which  relate  to  the  well-being  of  his  physical  form 
are  to  be  found  out  by  hard  blows,  not  so  many  given  as  taken. 

He  is  just  as  ignorant  of  the  whole  social  economy  into  which  he 
is  born.  It  is  not  revealed  to  him  in  his  organization.  It  is  found 
out  by  him  through  long  and,  too  often,  weary  experience.  He  is 
just  as  ignorant  of  the  civil  laws,  the  economic  laws,  and  the  indus- 
trial laws.  Everything  is  to  be  learned  by  him  that  is  to  make  him 
a  strong,  stalwart,  victorious  man. 

If  it  were  not  for  the  paternal  shield,  the  race  would  very  soon 
die  out.  So  many  are  the  impending  laws  which,  violated,  destroy 
or  maim,  that  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as  vicarious  sufi'ering, 
if  it  were  not  in  the  power  of  one  being  to  put  himself  in  the  place 
of  another,  if  it  were  not  possible  for  the  parent  to  impute  his 
knowledge  and  experience  to  the  child,  and  to  suffer  for  the  child, 
it  would  be  impossible  for  many  to  be  reared  into  life,  and  the  race 
would  run  out. 

This  education  which  begins,  then,  in  material  knowledge  and 
law  takes  two  forms.  First,  we  learn  to  obey  law,  and  we  learn  it 
through  much  tribulation.  The  lesson  of  caring  for  ourselves  is 
learned  in  a  few  things.  It  does  not  require  more  than  half  a  dozen 
burnings  of  the  hand  to  teach  the  child  to  l^eep  out  of  the  fire. 
Children  very  soon  learn  the  diff'erence  between  going  down  stairs 
voluntarily  and  going  down  in  a  heap.  The  most  common  material 
laws  are  learned  by  children.  But  the  more  subtle  economy,  those 
laws  on  which  not  only  present  comfort  but  ultimate  strength  de- 


TEE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.  131 

pencls,  those  laws  -wliicli  lie  at  the  bottom  of  thrift  and  wise  political 
economy — these  are  very  seldom  learned.  Many  men  never  learn 
them  perfectly  until  obedience  to  natural  law  is  learned. 

Next,  we  have  to  learn  the  control  of  material  law.  For  by 
obedience  Ave  govern.  He  that  submits  to  natural  law  very  soon  can 
use  it  as  he  pleases.  Every  one  who  will  pursue  a  trade,  and  become 
an  industrial  and  frugal  man,  gathering  and  holding,  must  have 
some  knoAvledge  of  the  laws  of  the  globe  in  which  all  industry  re- 
sides and  makes  itself  profitable.  So  there  need  to  be  directions  as 
to  obedience  to  material  laws,  and  as  to  learning  how  to  govern  by 
.  the  use  of  them.  Every  child  that  comes  into  life  passes  through  a 
scene  of  more  or  less  conflict,  followed  by  punitive  results,  or  results 
of  reward. 

There  is,  next,  an  inward  relation  of  men's  faculties.  "We 
receive,  we  know  not  what.  A  child  is  born  ;  and  he  knows  no 
more  about  himself  at  five  years,  whether  it  be  of  his  body  or  his 
soul,  than  a  watch  knows  of  itself  when  it  comes  from  the  hand 
of  the  maker ;  and  men,  for  the  most  part,  pass  through  the  greater 
portion  of  their  life  without  any  considerable  self-knowledge. 
Instruction,  as  society  is  now  constituted,  is  very  general.  The  in- 
struction w^hich  is  given  in  the  schools,  in  the  family,  and  in  the 
church,  is  as  yet  remote,  and  does  not  half  cover  the  ground  of 
human  necessity.  Not  only  is  every  man  himself  who  is  born,  but 
in  the  making  of  himself  there  is  much  of  father  and  mother,  or 
ancestors.  He  is  not  an  original  creature.  He  is  an  effect  in  a  long 
line  or  series  of  efiects  ;  and  he  brings  down  unconsciously  and  un- 
known to  himself  tendencies  and  forces  which  are  incongruous,  ill- 
adjusted,  and  of  differing  emphasis,  as  a  result  of  the  right-doing  or 
wrong-doing  of  those  who  anteceded  him.  There  is  a  very  great 
range  in  which  hereditary  tendencies  move,  and  there  is  a  great 
variety  of  them. 

There  are,  first,  those  tendencies  which  are  favorable.  There  are 
those  which  give  a  man  a  constitution  ol  body  which  feivors  endur- 
ance. Men  who  are  organized  Avith  a  body  which  is  in  harmony 
■with  itself,  and  all  parts  of  w^hich  act  without  friction,  or  com- 
paratively so,  are  very  apt  to  be  despots  on  account  of  that  in 
regard  to  Avhich  they  had  no  sort  of  choice,  and  the  possession  of 
which  is  not  in  any  sense  a  matter  ot  merit  to  them.  They  are  w^ell 
organized.  Their  food  digests  Avell.  They  sleep  well.  They  are 
always  strong  and  impetuous.  They  think  right  straight  out  to. 
what  they  Avant  to  do.  They  have  a  quick  sense  of  the  causes  which 
produce  certain  results.  They  have  endurance.  At  night  they  are 
not  worn  out  by  the  fatigue  of  the  day  which  has  gone  before.  How 


132  THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE, 

vigorous  tliey  are  !  How  they  enjoy  activity  !  And  how  they 
despise  shiggards  !  With  what  contempt  do  they  look  upon  shift- 
less men  !  How  they  look  down  upon  these  slatternly  fellows  who 
never  seem  to  have  any  purpose ;  or  who,  if  they  have  a  purpose, 
never  stick  to  it !  How  little  patience  they  have  with  those  who 
always  go  limping  on  one  foot  or  the  other  through  life  ! 

Here  are  those  men  Avho  received  from  their  fathers  or  grand- 
fathers a  sound  physical  organization  which  gives  them  health,  tire, 
power,  and  continuity  in  it.  They  act  as  though  they  got  it  all, 
and  put  it  into  themselves,  and  as  though  they  were  deserving  of 
great  credit  for  having  it;  whereas  it  came  to  them. 

"  What  hast  thou  that  thou  hast  not  received?" 

Another  man  near  to  them  has  a  scrofulous  temperament,  but 
he  inherits  it,  and  is  not  to  blame  for  having  it.  He  has  a  poor 
stomach,  and  his  food  is  not  properly  digested ;  but  he  did  not  make 
his  stomach.  The  blood  has  a  hard  time  to  get  into  his  lungs  to  be 
be  aerated ;  but  that  is  not  his  fault,  for  he  did  not  make  his  own 
lungs.  When  the  blood  is  aerated  it  goes  feebly  on  its  course  ;  the 
pump  does  not  work  very  strongly ;  but  it  is  not  his  fault,  for  he 
did  not  make  his  heart.  And  when  the  blood  gets  into  the  brain  — 
that  source  of  sentiency — it  is  poor,  unricli  blood,  and  it  does  not 
make  ideas,  does  not  stimulate  thought,  at  all.  His  whole  animal 
system  is  deranged.  Feebleness  is  stamped  on  him  as  a  part  of  his 
creation.  And  how  do  these  strong  men  triumph  over  him,  and 
say,  "  He  is  not  capable  of  taking  care  of  himself,  and  he  ought  to 
go  to  the  poorhouse!"  The  world  is  a  poorhouse,  and  he  came  into 
it,  or  rather  was  ushered  into  it,  without  his  own  volition;  and  he  is 
no  more  responsible  for  his  physical  organization  than  you  are, 
strong  man !  He  is  no  more  to  blame  for  his  tendency  to  vice  than 
you  are  meritorious  for  your  tendency  to  virtue.  And  do  you  sup- 
pose that  that  man,  whose  tendencies  are  downward,  starts  in  an 
equal  race  with  you  when  he  sets  out  in  the  course  of  life  ?  Has 
he,  with  his  organization,  as  good  a  chance  as  you  have  ? 

It  would  be  well  if  it  were  only  so,  but  there  are  many  men  who 
are  organized  disease.  There  are  many  men  whose  very  brain  is 
supersensitive,  as  the  result  of  the  evil  conduct  of  those  who  went 
before  them.  Not  only  is  their  brain  always  on  edge,  but  they  are 
over-sensitive  in  every  passion  and  appetite. 

There  are  others  whose  brains  are  very  cool,  and  who  are  very 
calm.  They  are  organized  so.  God  put  them  into  life  to  run  a  dif- 
ferent race,  and  with  a  different  vehicle.  Who  art  thou  who  domi- 
neerest  in  judgment  over  thy  fellow,  he  carrying  in  him  a  body  of 
death — sickness  of  liver,  and  sickness  of  stomach,  and  irritableness 


THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.  133 

of  brain — and  you  carrying  in  you  health  and  strength  and  cour- 
age ?  Is  there  no  difference  between  his  chances  in  Hfe  and  yours  ? 
You  have  your  battle  somewhere  else.  He  has  his  battle  far  down 
below  your  field,  it  may  be.  With  you,  as  I  will  show  in  a  moment, 
it  maybe  be  a  conflict  between  selfishness  and  pride  and  conscience. 
You,  taking  advantage  of  the  dominance  of  health  and  vigor  and 
power  which  is  in  you,  may  be  a  despot,  and  you  may  tread  men 
down  ruthlessly  and  selfishly.  Your  conflict  does  not  come  in  the 
lungs,  nor  in  the  stomach,  nor  in  the  excitability  of  the  brain  :  it 
comes  in  the  region  of  the  moral  faculties.  But  there  are  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  men  with  whom  the  first  question  is  a  question 
of  life.  "  Can  I  live,  at  any  rate  ?"  they  ask  themselves.  They  fight 
every  day  for  breath,  for  food,  for  digestion,  for  circulation  and  for 
nutrition. 

I  am  not  indulging  in  speculations  :  I  am  speaking  facts.  I  am  not 
deducing  theories  :  these  are  things  that  I  know.  They  are  things 
that  you  may  know  if  you  will  look.  They  are  things  that  every 
physician  and  physiologist  knows.  You  cannot  preach  the  doctrine 
of  the  struggle  of  life  and  ignore  them.  Men  are  made  so  differ- 
ently, they  are  started  with  such  different  enginery,  that  the  battle 
of  life,  in  innumerable  instances,  ranges  from  far  down  to  far  up — 
from  hardly  any  fighting  to  hard  fighting.  Therefore  it  is  that  we 
ought  to  have  very  large  charity,  often,  for  men  who  are  very  great 
sinners.  I  know  that  pretense  ascribes  to  men  physical  dispropor- 
tions which  do  not  exist :  but  there  would  be  no  counterfeit  if  there 
were  not  a  reality.  There  is  a  reality  in  this.  There  are  multitudes 
of  persons  who  are  children  of  vice  and  crime.  They  are  not  so 
without  their  own  fault ;  but  they  are  so  without  any  such  fault  as 
would  inhere  in  you  if  the  same  results  were  developed  in  you  which 
manifest  themselves  in  them.  There  is  many  a  man  who  finds  that 
it  requires  all  that  he  can  do  during  his  whole  life  to  make  up  for 
the  inequalities  which  birth  gave  to  him  in  physical  and  in  mental 
respects. 

There  are  a  great  many  whose  problem  in  life  is  not  physical,  but  is 
inward — namely,  the  relation  of  the  faculties  to  each  other.  I  have 
observed  some  things  in  this  direction,  I  do  not  undertake  to 
discuss  the  whole  realm  of  psychologic  truth  here ;  but  this  I  have 
noticed :  that  there  are  men  who  liave  faculties  which  tend  to  leaven 
each  other,  and  which  interfere  with  each  other.  The  good  which 
is  in  them  works  clear  down  to  the  bottom,  so  that  the  evil  that  is 
in  them  is  constantly  restrained.  It  feels  the  effect  of  the  good  ten- 
dencies of  their  higher  faculties. 

I  have  noticed  in  other  persons  that  their  faculties  lie  in  juxta- 


134  THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

position,  but  do  not  keep  much  company  with  each  other.  There 
is  a  minority  and  there  is  a  majority  that  never  act  with  each  other. 
There  are  some  parts  that  are  bad,  and  some  parts  that  are  good  in 
them ;  and  the  parts  that  are  good  do  not  seem  to  be  affected  by  the 
parts  that  are  bad,  and  the  parts  that  are  bad  do  not  seem  to  be  af- 
fected by  the  parts  that  are  good.  The  problem  in  life  with  them  is 
how  to  equalize  dynamically  these  conditions  of  faculty — how  to  so 
bring  them  up  and  bring  them  together  that  they  shall  not  interfere 
with  each  other — so  that  they  shall  have  harmony  and  unity  of  mind 
by  having  all  their  nature  run  together. 

You  shall  see,  sometimes,  in  the  same  family,  very  strange  con- 
tradictions. The  first-born  child  may  be  healthy  and  hearty,  and 
yet  may  be,  as  we  say,  eccentric,  queer,  odd.  At  times  he  is  well 
enough ;  at  times  he  has  splendid  streaks ;  but  at  other  times  he  has 
most  intolerable  developments.  His  faculties  are  all  at  jar  and  dis- 
cord. The  next  child,  in  the  same  family,  may  be  as  smooth  as 
cream.  Everything  goes  along  equably  with  liini.  He  is  not  subject 
to  violent  passions.  He  has  no  excessive  pride  that  rams  out  in  one 
direction,  and  no  selfishness  that  sweeps  like  a  freshet  in  another, 
coming  back  afterward  to  great  humility  and  sorrow.  .  There  are  no 
alternations  in  his  feelings  or  actions.  Every  part  seems  to  har- 
monize with  every  other. 

In  the  same  household,  when  one  child  is  born,  the  line  of  its 
life  seems  to  be  in  one  direction,  and  when  another  is  born  its 
line  of  life  seems  to  be  in  another  direction.  They  cross  each 
other's  path.  The  problem  of  life  is  not  alike  in  their  cases.  The 
consequence  is  that  they  cannot  understand  each  other.  One  per- 
son says,  "  You  say  that  you  can  obey,  aud  that  it  is  easy  for  you  to 
obey ;  but  I  cannot  obey,  and  it  is  not  easy  for  me  to  obey."  I  hold 
that  every  man  can  obey  every  requisition  which  God  lays  upon 
him ;  but  the  battle  is  different  in  different  men.  It  requires  all 
the  energy  and  power  of  life  in  some  men  to  do  things  which  other 
men  do  without  thinking.  Some  men  can  be  gentle  and  sweet 
under  provocation.  It  does  not  seem  to  be  any  more  trouble  for 
them  than  it  is  for  a  flower  to  secrete  honey  in  its  cell.  There  are 
other  men  who  are  sharp  and  intensive ;  and  it  is  no  more  trouble 
for  them  than  it  is  for  a  bee  when  it  goes  down  head-foremost  after 
honey  to  carry  a  sting  in  the  other  end.  The  difference  is  organic, 
constitutional,  and  is  to  be  marked  in  men. 

These  are  not  so  much  problems  as  they  are  facts — facts  that  are 
to  be  taken  into  consideration  in  any  theology  which  professes  to 
have  a  right  view  of  human  nature  from  top  to  bottom.  You  can- 
not range  men  up  by  the  side  of  any  one  law.    If  men  are  respon- 


TEE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.  135 

sible  according  to  what  they  have,  and  not  according  to  what  they 
have  not,  then  that  which  will  be  duty  for  one  man  will  be  much 
diminished  before  it  reaches  another  man.  It  is  the  duty  of  a  man 
who  has  eyes,  to  see  clearly;  but  if  a  man  is  half  blind,  then  it  is 
his  duty  to  see  according  to  the  eyes  which  he  has.  If  he  is  totally 
blind,  it  is  his  duty  to  see  with  his  fingers — to  feel  his  way.  Duties 
vary  according  to  circumstances.  To  some,  God  gives  one  talent ; 
to  some,  five ;  to  some,  ten ;  and  to  the  man  to  whom  he  gives  one, 
he  says,  "  Make  it  two ;"  to  the  man  to  whom  he  gives  five,  "  Make 
it  ten ;"  and  to  the  man  to  whom  he  gives  ten,  "Make  it  twenty." 
He  requires  them  all  to  be  developed,  but  he  makes  a  difference  as 
to  the  starting-point  of  men — as  to  how  much  chance  they  have  in 
the  great  battle  of  life. 

The  struggle  of  life  arises,  also,  from  the  bad  relation  which  birth 
and  education  institute  between  men  and  society.  It  would  seemfl 
almost  as  if  men  were  not  born  into  the  same  world,  so  difierenti 
are  they.  Compare  the  condition  at  birth  of  the  Esquimaux  with  a| 
child  born  in  a  religious  household  in  Brooklyn.  Compare  his 
chances  for  knowledge  and  culture  with  such  a  child's.  Compare 
the  chances  for  life  of  a  gypsy  child,  wandering  from  place  to  place, 
and  taught  by  his  parents  in  all  that  is  sharp  and  deceptive  and 
evil,  with  the  chances  for  life  of  one  of  your  own  children.  Com- 
pare the  chances  of  the  child  of  a  negro  man,  even  in  America,  with 
the  chances  of  the  children  of  the  Caucasian  races.  What  expecta- 
tions in  life  has  he  compared  with  theirs  ? 

Men  are  born  into  life  so  related  to  society  and  its  remunerations 
and  penalties  that  they  might  almost  as  well  have  been  born  into 
different  worlds.  Every  one  has  a  peculiar  struggle  which  belongs 
to  the  place  where  he  was  born.  There  are  children  of  converted 
families  who  are  born  into  positions  where  all  circumstances  favor 
them.  There  are  childrcn  who  are  protected  from  vice  and  tempta- 
tion on  every  side.  There  are  children  who  have  model  parents 
whose  example  is  a  perpetual  blessing  to  them.  But  on  the  other 
hand  there  are  those  all  of  whose  circumstances,  from  the  begin- 
ning, are  unfavorable  to  their  development  in  right  directions. 
When  I  look  at  my  own  childhood  it  is  iridescent.  There  were 
rainbows  above  every  storm.  The  sun  rose  and  spoke  a  language 
to  me  which  I  shall  never  forget ;  and  when  the  sun  went  down  its 
glory  was  around  about  me.  Years  came — summer  and  winter — 
Sabbaths  and  week-days — with  all  their  various  associations,  which> 
have  been  a  literature  of  beauty  to  me.  I  can  think  of  nothing; 
that  is  more  restful  to  my  mind,  and  nothing  that  quicker  brings 
tears  to  my  eyes,  than  the  old  country  home  where  my  mother 


136  THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

brought  me  forth,  and  where  I  was  surrounded  with  everything  thai 
could  contribnte  to  love  and  consolation.  But,  when  I  speak  of  the 
beauties  of  childhood,  and  the  memories  of  home,  are  there  some 
here  who  learned  the  language  of  oaths  at  the  lips  of  their  mother  ? 
Are  there  children  here  whose  first  remembrance  of  mother  is  that 
of  seeing  her  reeling  drunk  ?  Are  there  children  here  who  remem- 
ber that  their  father's  coming  was  like  the  coming  of  a  wind-storm 
with  rage  and  violence,  and  whose  childhood  was  an  experience  ot 
blows  and  kicks  and  cuffs  ?  Are  there  children  here  who  knew 
nothing  of  tenderness,  or  who  escaped  out  of  the  region  of  home  as 
one  would  escape  from  hell?  And  what  are  their  associations? 
"What  have  they  in  store  that  came  down  with  them  from  the  past  ? 
What  was  their  early  life?  Mine  was  as  a  silver  arrow  shot  from  a 
golden  bow  at  success.  Have  they  the  same  chance  that  1  had,  and 
that  your  child  has  ? 

Consider,  also,  that  the  moment  one  begins  to  move  forward  in 
life  every  step  is  a  conflict,  if  he  undertakes  to  move  according  to 
any  high  ideal  of  right — if  he  undertakes,  for  instance,  to  live  a 
Hfe  in  which  the  principles  of  truth  and  honesty  and  goodness  are  to 
be  held  inviolate.  I  think  that  the  time  when  one  goes  out  of  the 
household  is  the  most  royal  period  of  his  life.  A  young  man  who  has 
received  an  education,  who  has  a  conception  of  what  is  becoming  in 
manhood,  who  is  sensitive  to  the  honor  of  truth  and  to  the  dishonor 
of  untruth,  whose  aim  is  noble,  and  who  is  just  stepping  out  into  life, 
presents  a  sight  than  which  there  is  none  at  once  more  beautiful 
and  more  sad.  It  is  sad  because  the  moment  he  begins  to  act  with 
high  purposes  he  will  find  ten  thousand  fiendish  influences  brought 
ito  bear  upon  him.  If  he  love  the  truth,  ten  thousand  things  will 
Itempt  him  to  warp  and  break  it.  If  he  love  honor,  he  will  find 
ieverything  tending  to  lead  him  to  lower  the  standard  of  his  honor, 

(It  is  hard  for  a  man  to  take  the  ideal  of  honor  and  truth  and  recti- 
^  tude  and  plow  through  life  with  it.  Many  a  root  will  throw  the 
plow  out  of  the  furrow,  and  there  is  many  a  stone  which  it  will 
■catch  against.     Life  is  a  hard  field  in  which  to  learn  to  plow.     Men 

(meet  all  these  things  in  life.  It  is  seldom  that  a  man  can  carry  an 
ideal  of  any  kind  straight  through  life  without  meeting  conflict, 
disaster,  and  often  defeat. 

You  see,  from  these  views,  that  the  conflict  and  struggle  to  which 
we  are  all  called,  is  not  a  conflict  and  struggle  that  springs  merely 
from  our  misconduct.  If  men  tell  you  that  persons  have  conflicts 
in  life  because  they  are  so  bad  themselves,  you  may  fearlessly  deny 
it.  You  may  say  that  they  have  a  single  section  of  the  truth,  but 
that  the  broad  sphere  of  men  in  this  life  embraces  many  more  mat- 


THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.  137 

ters  than  tliey  are  themselves  responsible  for.     There  are  doubtless 
many  evils  that  they  allow  to  triumph  which  they  could  vanquish, 
and  for  Avhich  they  are  to  blame ;  but  when  you  consider  where  men 
are  born  ;  when  you  consider  with  what  temperaments  and  consti- 
tutions they  are  created ;  when  you  consider  what  temptations  they 
are  subject  to;  when  you  consider  how  little  knowledge  they  have 
of  themselves  and  of  the  influences  that  act  to  draw  them  away  from 
good  and  toward  evil,  while  there  is  much  to  blame,  there  is  much 
to  pity;  while  there  is  much  to  lead  us  to  thank  God  for  favorable 
circumstances,    there   is   much   more   to    lead   us    to    pity   men, 
and  hold  them  as  not  only  blameworthy  and  sinful,  but  as  having 
gone  tlirough  an  experience  of  having  been  sinned  against  mightily. 
Causes  that  inhere  in  the  very  structure  of  the  material  globe,  causes 
that  are  inherent  in  the  very  organization  of  a  man's  own  nature 
and  soul — the  body  he  lives  in,  the  way  in  which  he  is  put  together 
in  that  body,  the  society  into  which  he  is  launched,  the  institutions 
that  meet  him,  the  varied  experiences  whicli  he  goes  through — these 
great  influences,  these  mighty  forces,  which  the  apostle  spoke  of,  are 
at  work.    It  does  not  at  all  lower  the  sense  of  a  man's  responsibility 
in  that  sphere  in  which  he  is  reponsible,  nor  of  his  guilt  for  those 
things  which  he  ought  not  to  do,  having  power  to  restrain  himself; 
but  there  is  a  great  deal  more  in  this  world  than  sin.    There  is  much 
that  is  called  sin  which  is  constitutional,  and  which  belongs  to  men, 
not  because  they  will  do  wrong,  but  because  it  pleases  God  to  put 
them  where  they  are  obliged  to  fight  their  way  out  of  animalism 
into  manhood. 

The  conflict  and  struggle,  then,  is  so  universal  that  we  must  be- 
lieve that  it  is  the  design  of  God — that  it  is  organic.  I  do  not 
believe  that  sin  was  ever  created  by  God  purposely ;  but  that  con- 
stitution which  works  out  into  sin,  and  which  before  it  comes  to  it 
has  in  it  an  element  of  pain  and  of  penalty,  I  believe  is  divinely 
guided.  You  cannot  look  at  the  world  as  it  is,  you  cannot  count 
up  the  facts  of  nations  and  individuals  as  they  are,  and  escape,  it 
seems  to  me,  the  deduction  that  the  world  was  constructed,  not  as 
a  harmonious  machine  by  the  hand  of  the  Lord,  but  as  a  vast  realm 
of  experience  through  wliich  men  were  to  be  emancipated  from  their 
lower  nature  and  condition,  and  brought  up  to  a  higher  plane,  and 
into  better  conditions. 

So,  then,  when  it  is  said,  in  the  Word  of  God,  Work  out  your  own  t 
salvation  with  fear  and  trembling,  it  is  not  an  interjected,  novel/ 
truth :  it  is  what  nature,  if  we  had  been  enlightened  enough  to  un-l 
derstand  her,  would  have  said.  All  things  in  nature  say  that  ex- 1 
ertion,  efl'ort,  struggle,  with  pain  and  sorrow,  are  a  part  of  thaj 
experience  of  human  life. 


138  TEE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

Why  did  not  the  apple-tree  gi'ow  on  the  top  of  a  hill  ?  and 
•why  did  not  the  slope  of  the  hill  run  down  into  every  man's 
cellar,  so  that  every  apple  that  dropped  should  roll  into  a  bin  in  his 
cellar  without  any  effort  on  his  part  ?  How  nice  that  would  be ! 
Why  did  not  every  man  find,  as  snails  do,  a  house  on  his  back,  so 
that  he  would  be  saved  the  trouble  of  building  a  house,  and  learn- 
ing how  to  build  ?  Why  is  it  that  everybody  was  not  healthy  and 
"wise  and  good  ?  Why  were  not  all  sparrows  bluejays,  and  all  doves 
eagles,  and  all  eagles  doves  ?  Why  was  not  everything  something, 
and  something  everything  ?  In  short,  "what  did  God  make  every- 
thing that  he  did  make  for  ?     When  you  find  out,  tell  me,  "will  you  ? 

This  we  know :  that  the  world  was  so  made  that  men,  emerging 
from  lo"wer  conditions,  come  up  to  higher  ones  step  by  step,  and 
that  e"very  upward  step  is  like  a  new  birth,  and  has  its  birth-pangs. 
As  the  child  comes  crying  into  the  "world,  and  the  mother  moans, 
so  every  added  ten  years,  climacteric — the  sevens,  the  fourteens,  the 
twenty-ones — every  period  of  advance — has  been  through  other 
"Wombs,  other  births,  with  other  cryings  and  other  sufferings.  And 
so  it  is  that  every  step  of  the  way  down  to  the  last,  it  only  needed 
one  divine  authentication  to  show  that  this  -world  "was  built  so  that 
by  struggle  and  suffering  it  should  come  up  to  final  perfection — 
namely,  the  authentication  of  God's  own  Word, 

We  have  the  scene  of  the  Sufferer  who  was  lifted  on  Calvary. 
Men  say,  "  My  God  cannot  suffer."  Then  he  cannot  be  God  to  me. 
Men  say,  "  It  wasnot  just  that  Christ  should  suffer  for  the  sins  of  the 
"world."  Is  it  unjust  that  the  mother  should  suffer  for  the  inexpe- 
rience of  the  child  ?  That  doctrine  would  turn  every  cradle  upside 
down.  To  suffer  for  others  is  the  higtiest  mark  of  nobleness  and 
heroism.  The  whole  world  is  suffering,  and  by  suffering  is  coming 
up — or  might  come  up.  That  is  the  law.  That  is  the  direction. 
That  is  the  true  hand  which  points  to  the  light  sky.  It  is  wailing 
and  sighing  that  lead  up  toward  manhood.  It  is  not  suffering  in 
excess,  it  is  not  enduring  beyond  what  we  are  able  to  bear,  but  it  is 
pain  and  sorrow  and  trouble  adapted  to  our  condition,  that  is  the 
medicine  by  which  "vve  are  healed,  and  the  hammer  by  which  we  are 
released  from  the  imprisoning  rock,  and  the  harrow  or  plow  by 
■which  the  harvest  is  cultivated.  The  way  toward  perfection  is  a  way 
toward  strife  and  tears;  and  over  it  stand  the  cross  and  the  Sufferer 
who  died  for  the  world  to  make  harmony  between  the  universe  be- 
yond and  the  experience  of  men  on  this  side. 

No  man  can  pick  out  his  own  campaign  in  life.  Every  man 
must  fight  the  battles  that  meet  him,  -whatever  they  are.  Nothing 
is  more  common  than  for  men  to  justify  their  own  cowardice  and 


THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.  139 

defection  in  life  by  saying,  "If  I  had  been  in  such  circumstances  I 

could  have  done  so  and  so."     Your  trouble  in  fighting  the  battle  of  ' 

life  is  that  you  break  down  at  every  step.    You  see  others  fighting 

with  the  tireless  wing  of  the  eagle,  but  you  fly  from  tree  to  tree,  and 

take  breath  at  every  step,  and  say,  "  Oh,  if  God  had  made  me  an  | 

eajjle  I  could  have  taken  care  of  all  the  troubles  that  I  have  down  l 

o  i 

here,  but  I  am  a  sparrow,  and  every  little  bit  of  a  hawk,  and  every il 

owl  of  the  night,  and  the  shrike,  and  the  bluejay  attack  me,  andl 
how  could  I,  small  as  I  am,  get  out  of  the  way  ?     If  I  had  only  been  | 
an  eagle — "     Oh,  yes,  if  you  had  only  been  an  eagle  !     But  you  are{ 
not  made  an  eagle ;  and  the  question  is  simply  this :  Will  you  grum- 
ble and  die  as  the  fool  dieth  ?     If  "God  chose  to  put  you  into  life  at 
the  point  of  vigor,  there  is  an  end  in  that  campaign — there  is  a  dis- 
closure in  that  problem.     There  is  victory  in  every  one  of  these 
things.     There  may  not  be  victory  in  them  at  the  present  time ;  but 
I  believe  that  there  will  be  victory  in  them  beyond  the  present.     I 
believe  that  when  you  come  to  measure  and  see  what  the  fruition  of 
the  future  is  compared  with  the  present  struggle,  you  will  be  satis- 
fied with  the  wisdom  of  God  in  the  economy  of  life.    If  you  could 
know  now  what  you  will  know  by  and  by,  you  would  see  that  what 
God  is  doing  for  you  is  better  than  what  you  desire  for  yourself. 

I  have  seen  men  who  said,  "  Who  could  expect  a  man  to  do  any- 
thing Avho  was  stricken  in  life  as  I  have  been  ?  What  do  you  sup- 
pose a  man  can  do  who  has  to  work  twelve  hours  a  day,  and  is  only 
just  able  to  get  his  bread  and  cheese,  and  sweats  at  that  ?"  What 
do  I  suppose  he  can  do  ?  I  suppose  he  can  do  a  great  deal.  I  sup- 
pose that  poor  living  and  high  thinking  are  worth  every  man's  en- 
deavor. A  man  Avho  can  take  the  place  which  God  puts  him  in, 
and  stick  to  it,  and  fight  it  through,  and  stand  a  man  every  inch, 
has,  I  think,  awaiting  him,  an  estate  of  glory  such  as  has  not  been 
known  in  this  world. 

"  Why,"  you  say,  "  I  could  have  borne  this  yoke,  only  it  cuts 
right  across  the  sore  spot  on  my  neck." 

When  I  was  a  boy,  nothing  suited  me  so  well  as  to  have  my 
father  whip  me  Avhen  my  clothes  were  on.  Then  I  could  bear  it 
with  the  utmost  equanimity.  It  was  when  he  took  me  at  advan- 
tage, in  the  'morning,  before  I  was  dressed,  that  I  did  not  like 
whipping  1 

I  have  heard  many  people  say,  "  If  God  only  tempered  aifliction 
so  that  it  came  on  the  spot  where  I  did  not  feel  it,  I  could  bear  it." 
But  what  sort  of  affliction  would  that  be  ?  What  does  the  bullock, 
with  his  tough,  hard  skin,  care  for  the  yoke  ?  But  if  it  be  a  young 
ox,  whose  neck  is  yet  tender,  on  which  the  yoke  is  put,  how  hard  it 


1^0  THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

is  for  him  to  bear  it !  And  so  in  youth  it  is  hard  for  persons  to 
bear  affliction.  But  that  way  comes  patience.  That  way  comes 
Belf-control.    That  way  comes  knowledge. 

Now,  men  must  take  themselves  as  they  are,  and  they  must  take 
troubles  where  they  come,  and  they  must  do  the  best  they  can  in 
the  place  where  God  puts  them.  You  may  not  know  the  meaning 
of  the  trials  that  you  are  called  to  endure,  and  you  may  not  like 
them.  I  do  not  suppose  anybody  likes  troubles.  We  all  like  lazi- 
ness. We  would  all  like  to  go  to  heaven  through  self-indulgence. 
But  that  is  not  the  way  that  men  were  meant  to  go  to  heaven. 
That  is  the  way  to  make  sloths,  but  not  fully-developed  men.  We 
want  to  have  our  path  made  clear.  We  want  all  the  hills  brought 
low  and  all  the  valleys  exalted.  We  want  all  rocks  taken  out  of  the 
way.  And  then  we  would  like  to  walk  as  on  holiday  occasions, 
with  music  and  banners  and  acclamations.  "We  would  like  to  be 
crowned  soldiers  before  we  have  fought  the  battle ;  but  it  is  not 
then  that  God  crowns  us.  It  is  after  many  campaigns  and  much 
night-and-day  work.  It  is  after  we  have  been  toughened  in  the 
struggle,  and  have  come  out  veterans.  It  is  after  we  have  faith- 
fully done  our  duty,  and  have  had  the  experience  which  a  faithful 
performance  of  duty  alone  can  bring.  Then  it  is  that  our  manhood 
comes  to  us,  and  then  it  is  that  we  are  crowned,  and  are  worthy  of 
a  place  in  the  midst  of  the  heavenly  host. 

There  is  one  thing  which  we  do  not  take  out  of  this  world  with 
us.  No  man,  I  think,  will  take  his  house  through  the  portals  of 
the  grave.  No  man  will  take  through  the  grave  his  body.  That 
drops  at  the  grave,  thank  God.  No  man  will  take  his  bonds  and 
mortgages  through  the  grave.  No  man  will  take  through  the  grave 
his  pictures,  or  statues,  or  books.  No  man  will  carry  through  the 
grave  those  dishes  which  are  full  of  delight  to  the  palate.  There 
are  ten  thousand  things  which  will,  as  a  part  of  the  furnishing  of 
the  school-house  here,  be  left  behind,  as  the  child,  when  he  goes  to 
the  college  or  the  university,  leaves  in  the  school-house  his  grammar 
and  arithmetic  and  spelling-book.  And  when  we  come  to  the 
grave's  mouth  we  leave  many  things  behind  us.  But  there  is  no 
man  that  has  learned  patience  who  does  not  carry  that  through. 
There  is  no  man  that  has  learned  the  art  of  subduing  pride  who 
does  not  carry  that  through.  There  is  no  man  who  has  gained  the 
lore  of  love  who  does  not  carry  that  through.  There  is  no  man 
that  has  developed  in  himself  any  Christian  virtue  who  does  not 
carry  that  through.  You  will  not  learn  one  attribute  of  manhood 
that  you  will  leave  behmd  you.  You  will  not  cultivate  a  single 
Christian  trait  that  you  \vill  not  carry  with  you.     Every  particle  of 


TEE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.  \i\ 

truth  or  love  or  goodness  tliat  you  acquire  here  will  be  yours  in  the 
life  which  is  to  come.  All  the  higher  elements  which  you  possess 
in  this  world  you  will  carry  with  you  beyond  the  grave — and  some 
of  you  will  have  the  smallest  load  that  you  ever  carried,  if  you  do 
not  look  out! 

I  remark  again,  that  in  this  universal  conflict  of  life,  the  victory 
is  not  to  be  looked  for  outwardly.  You  will  remember  that  when 
Paul  had  that  strange,  mysterious  thorn  in  the  flesh,  whatever  it 
was,  he  prayed  thrice  that  it  might  be  removed  from  him ;  and  the 
Lord  answered,  "  My  grace  shall  be  suiScient  for  you.  I  will  not 
take  away  the  trouble,  but  I  will  give  you  a  grace  that  shall  enable 
you  to  bear  it,  and  give  you  a  victory  over  it."  In  this  world  we 
frequently  gain  victorie?  in  ourselves,  although  outwardly  we  seem 
to  suffer  defeat.  There  are  many  men  who  are  not  prospered  when 
they  seem  to  be  prospered.  It  is  the  worst  part  of  them  that  is 
prospered  when  they  are  only  prospered  outwardly.  Many  men 
who  have  gone  down  in  bankruptcy  are  themselves  conscious  that 
there  is  something  in  them  that  is  better,  sweeter,  more  noble  than 
material  prosperity  has  been  able  to  develop.  They  are  conscious 
that  they  are  more  men  in  their  trouble  than  they  would  be  if  they 
were  out  of  it.     Grief  opens  the  door  of  heaven  to  many  souls. 

Just  go  to  those  who  sit  in  the  shadow.  There  is  many  a  man 
who  has  sought  success,  and  struggled  for  it,  and  come  short  of  it, 
and  who  seems  to  be  defeated,  but  who,  after  all,  has  had  a  victory. 
The  best  side  of  him  has  been  victorious.  That  which  made  him 
victorious  was  more  manliness;  it  was  more  godliness;  it  was  more 
of  that  spirit  of  hope  by  which  we  are  saved.  It  was  that  faith 
which  inherits  heaven  by  foresight. 

If  there  be  those,  therefore,  who  seem  to  themselves  to  be  over- 
borne; if  there  be  those  who  say,  "Look  at  me :  here  I  am,  right  in 
the  middle  of  life  with  nothing  to  stand  upon,"  let  them  take  com- 
fort from  this  view. 

There  are  those  who  watch  men,  and  make  contrasts.  One  says, 
"  Do  you  know  Mr.  Bumblebee  ?  He  never  had  any  of  the  virtues, 
but  see  how  he  has  rolled  up  money !  See  what  property  he  has 
got !  Do  not  you  know  how  at  the  last  Black  Friday  he  was  the , 
only  man  who  did  not  suffer  ?  Do  you  not  remember  how  he  man- 
aged so  that  every  thing  came  into  his  dish  ?  He  got  everything! 
into  his  hands,  and  then  just  as  he  saw  that  there  was  going  to  be 
a  smash  he  got  rid  of  it ;  and  the  next  day,  when  everybody  else 
went  down,  he  went  up.  And  so  it  has  been  with  him  for  twenty 
or  thirty  years." 

I  have  seen  beetle  bugs,  in  summer,  on  the  road,  rolling  up  and 


142  TEE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

rolling  up  their  pile ;  but  I  never  felt  the  least  disposition  to  be  one 
of  those  "bugs ! 

On  the  other  hand,  I  have  heard  men  say,  "  See  that  man  !  It 
seems  really  mysterious  that  one  so  adapted  to  do  good,  one  who 
has  always  been  so  kind  and  generous,  should  be  where  he  now  is. 
He  is  thrown  aside  entirely.  All  men  respect  him ;  but  they  can- 
not stop  to  notice  him.  They  are  too  busy  with  their  own  affairs. 
He  is  bankrupt,  and  will  never  get  on  his  feet  again.  He  is  of  no 
account.  His  name  is  no  longer  on  the  commercial  register.  He  is 
never  seen  on  the  street  where  he  used  to  be  so  busy.  He  failed, 
and  is  forgotten.  The  waves  have  rolled  over  him.  He  came  to 
nothing." 

Go  trace  out  that  man.  Trace  him  by  the  flowers  which  spring 
up  by  his  feet.  Trace  him  by  the  sweetness  of  his  teaching  to  chil- 
dren. Trace  him  by  the  noble  conceptions  which  he  has  given  them 
of  the  future,  and  which  will  breed  some  of  the  noblest  men  of  the 
present  generation.  See  him  consoling  the  poor,  and  teaching  the 
dying  how  to  hope.  See  him  when  his  own  hour  comes.  He  is 
almost  a  pauper.  How  few  follow  him  to  the  grave,  as  he  is  carried 
in  an  open  wagon  in  the  country  by  a  plain  man  who  has  got  used 
to  burying  folks,  and  who  cannot  be  supjjosed  to  have  much  senti- 
ment on  such  subjects !  He  is  put  into  the  ground,  and  the  dirt  is 
shoveled  on  him  without  much  regard  to  delicacy.  But  oh,  what  a 
funeral  that  is !  I  cannot  see  for  the  wings  that  flash.  I  cannot 
see  for  the  multitude  of  those  who  have  come  at  God's  command  to 
take  the  soul  of  his  servant  up  through  the  heavens.  They  move 
as  the  leaves  move  when  winds  sweep  through  the  summer  forests. 
They  move  as  the  waves  move  upon  the  sea.  I  hear  them  shout.  I 
see  the  battlements  gleam.  I  hear  the  universal  outcry,  "  Well 
done,  and  welcome !"  as  he  enters  the  heavenly  land.  Give  me  his 
poverty,  give  me  his  obscurity,  give  me  his  disappointments  of  suc- 
I  cess,  if  they  will  only  work  in  me  such  hope  and  faith  and  love  as 
\  they  worked  in  him !  Woe  to  the  man  Avho  is  bankrupt  outside  and 
I  inside  too  !  Blessed  is  the  man  who  is  bankrupt  outside  that  he 
I  may  come  to  his  inside  and  give  it  room  to  expand ! 

Most  men,  I  remark  once  more,  come  to  their  conflicts  in  life  as 
if  they  were  evils,  pure  and  unmixed ;  but  if  the  facts  which  I  have 
stated  are  true,  and  the  general  view  of  the  moral  constitution  of 
this  world  by  which  men  are  wrought  out  by  suffering  as  well  as  by 
joy  is  a  correct  view,  then  for  us  to  seek  ease,  and  to  try  to  dodge 
and  run  away  from  any  conflict  which  comes  up  before  us,  is 
as  foolish  as  for  a  soldier  on  the  field  of  battle  to  run  away  from  the 
enemy.  There  are  stragglers  in  the  army  who  are  timid  and  fearing. 


THE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.,  113 

and  who  in  the  day  of  battle  are  not  to  be  found ;  but  good 
soldiers,  hardened  in  the  field,  are  pleased  by  nothing  so  much  as 
being  drawn  into  the  conflict.  When  there  is  figliting  to  be  done 
they  want  to  have  a  hand  m  it,  and  they  say,  "  Put  me  where  I  can 
get  at  the  enemy."  And  they  chafe  if  they  are  thrown  behind  the 
hill  as  a  reserve,  and  are  allowed  to  take  no  part  in  the  battle.  And 
welcome  to  their  ears  is  the  cry,  "  You  are  ordered  up."  And  out 
they  run,  and  fall  upon  the  foe,  and  strike  as  if  they  were  but  iron. 
They  pitch  into  the  fight  with  eagerness  and  gladness.  There  aj'o 
no  laggards  among  them.  There  are  none  of  them  that  want  easy 
places,  or  that  would  like  to  fight  out  of  range.  Every  one  of  them 
wants  to  meet  his  foeman  face  to  face  and  hand  to  hand.  And  yet, 
in  life,  in  a  greater  battle,  and  under  a  greater  Captain,  how  many 
there  are  who  are  afraid  to  meet  the  conflict,  and  seek  in  every  way 
to  avoid  it,  and  brnig  up  their  children  with  the  effeminate  idea 
that  the  great  happiness  of  life  consists  in  fortifying  themselves 
against  dangers,  and  making  themselves  so  high  and  so  strong  that 
nothing  can  get  at  them  ! 

It  is  better  to  bring  up  your  children  nobly  to  endure  whatever 
is  put  on  them.      Do  not  seek  temptation  or  danger  ;  but  when  in 
the  exercise  of  duty  God  brings  you  face  to  face  with  temptations! 
or  dangers,  do  not  be  a  coward  and  run  away  from  the  field  in  thei 
day  of  battle.  You  are  called  of  God  to  your  conflict,  and  you  must  \ 
meet  it  manfully,  every  one  of  you. 

Once  more :  Remember  that  it  is  not  a  vagrant  and  aimless 
suffering  which  we  go  through  in  this  life.  If  you  look  over  the 
face  of  the  deep  in  its  stormy  hour,  it  would  seem  as  though  the 
demon  of  confusion  had  possession  of  the  sea  ;  and  the  spots 
of  hideous  light  which  come  through  the  clouds  seem  more  hateful 
than  even  the  raging  of  the  waves  ;  but  after  all,  there  is  not 
a  drop  of  the  ocean  that  stirs  except  under  the  influence  of  a  law 
which  is  as  steady  as  that  which  holds  the  oak  to  its  place.  The 
wind  and  the  water  move  according  to  laws  which  God  established 
in  eternity.  And  in  this  great  and  wild  conflict  of  life  there  is  a 
power  that  administers  and  controls.  There  is  a  supervising  Provi- 
dence. There  is  a  loving  heart  of  God.  There  is  a  God  who  is 
willing  to  inflict  pain,  as  he  declares,  because  he  loves.  As  a  father 
chastises  his  child  that  he  may  whip  the  evil  out  of  him,  and  whip 
virtues  into  him,  so  God  chastises  those  whom  he  loves. 

If  you  be  shielded  from  trouble  and  care  and  annoyance;  if  you 
be  surrounded  by  circumstances  which  make  the  present  hour 
delightful ;  if  you  have  no  conflict  and  bear  no  burden  ;  if  you  do 
not  suffer,  then  God  says  that  you  are  bastards.     If  you  are  God'a 


144  •  TEE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

children,  and  if  you  have  the  vei-y  touch  of  manhood  in  you,  it  is 
because  you  have  had  such  an  idea  of  what  was  right  and  pure  and 
true  and  noble  in  this  world  that  you  have  strained  yourself  to  the 
work  and  borne  trials  manfully. 

Under  the  supervision  of  Providence  every  man's  conflict  ia 
marked  of  God.     Every  man  is  helped  who  will  permit  the  ingress 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  his  soul. 
J       The  battle  of  life  is  a  battle  the  result  of  which  we  need  not  fear. 

I' It  is  a  battle  which  God  himself  guides.  As  in  the  field  of  battle 
the  general  is  not  seen,  but  from  afar  off  gives  his  commands, 
-  saving  himself  so  that  if  the  battle  go  wrong  he  still  may  counsel  it, 
so  God  hides  himself ;  but  we  are  watched  by  him,  and  by  and  by 
the  cloud  will  roll  away,  and  then,  sitting  in  the  inexpressible 
grandeur  of  love  and  mercy  and  beauty.  He  that  hath  helped  us 
all  the  days  of  our  lives  shall,  be  seen  by  us,  and  we  shall  be  wel- 
comed where  there  is  no  more  conflict,  or  sin,  or  sorrow,  but  eternal 
manhood  and  victory  and  joy. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE   SERMON. 

We  thank  tbee,  our  Heavenly  Father,  that  there  reraaineth  a  rest  for 
the  people  of  God.  How  full  of  storm  is  life!  How  full  of  care  aud  uncer- 
titudel  What  agitaHons  are  continually  beating  upon  us  as  the  surf  beats 
upon  the  shore!  We  are  not  sure  of  to-morrow.  How  bright  soever  the 
day  may  be,  storms  may  be  chasing  it  in  the  night!  We  perpetually  pass 
from  sunshine  to  cloud;  from  summer  to  winter;  from  calms  to  storms. 
We  have  a  moment's  rest,  and  then  are  scared  away  till  our  wing  is  weary 
with  flying  from  danger.  We  are  perpetually  chased  up  and  down,  when- 
soever we  attempt  to  live  according  to  tny  law,  sought  out  of  pride,  over- 
whelmed with  vauity,  selfishness,  avarice  and  envy,  tried  and  tempted,  and 
too  often  overcome.  Our  svay  is  wearisome  while  our  conscience  wakes; 
and  when  our  conscience  sleeps,  and  we  plimge  onward,  and  get  into  inex- 
tricable trouble,  O  Lord,  then  come  despondency  and  despair.  And  so  we 
go  through  dark  and  ligtit.  So  we  go  over  the  rough  and  over  the  smooth. 
So  we  are  strangers  aud  pilgrims,  who  confess  that  this  is  not  their  home ; 
that  they  are  seeking  another  country  and  a  better  one.  Aud  we  rejoice  to 
believe  that  far  up  above  every  storm  there  is  still  a  calm  and  the  shining  of 
the  sun.  So  above  all  the  trouble,  and  all  the  temptation,  and  all  the  trial 
of  life,  there  is  a  rest  that  remaineth.  The  lights  which  are  blown  out  here 
are  not  extinguished  there.  The  sobs  and  the  wails  which  we  hear  so 
plentifully  here  die  long  before  they  reach  that  shore  of  peace.  No  sorrow 
stains  its  air.  No  contentions  beat  like  fierce  winds  upon  that  land.  Into 
it  from  off  the  stormy  sea  have  run  how  many  voyagers !  Out  of  our  arms 
some  have  flown  as  the  dove  flies  away— little  ones ;  and  we  are  glad  that 


TRE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE.  145 

they  are  saved  from  so  much  that  awaited  their  earthly  experience.  From 
our  side  how  many  have  gone  of  our  companions!  They  are  at  rest;  we 
toil  on. 

Grant,  we  beseech  of  thee,  that  we  may  feel  more  and  more  the  goodness 
of  God  in  what  we  call  bereavements  and  afflictious,  and  that  there  may 
come  to  us,  through  our  sympathy  with  what  is  high  and  benevolent  and 
generous  and  just,  more  and  more  a  sense  of  the  divine  mercy  in  chastise- 
ment. Though  thou  art  hiding  thy  hand  under  the  dark  robe,  may  we 
never  fail  to  see  that  it  is  the  hand  pierced  and  stained  with  blood  for  us. 
Though  we  at  times  wonder  why  the  bitter  cup  is  put  to  our  lips,  may  we 
remember  that  it  is  the  cup  of  which  we  take  only  a  sip,  but  which  thou 
didst  drink  to  the  dregs.  And  while  we  see  thy  providence  thwarting  us  at 
every  step,  may  we  hear  thee  saying,  "  What  I  do  now  ye  know  not;  but 
ye  sliall  know  hereafter."  Into  that  great  hereafter  may  we  put  our  cares, 
and  all  our  reasoning  questions,  and  all  our  doubts  and  fears,  and  all  our 
unbelief,  and  feel  that  God  will  make  that  plain  in  the  end  which  is  obscure 
now  by  reason  of  our  ignorance. 

O  Lord,  grant  that  high  above  every  other  experience  may  be  the  belief 
that  thou  art,  and  that  thou  art  good,  so  that  we  may  lean  our  whole 
weight  upon  thee;  so  that  we  may  not  be  daunted  from  trusting  thee  by 
any  apparition  of  terror.  May  we  disbelieve  everything  but  thee;  and  may 
we  believe  thee  to  be  a  God  of  love  whose  justice  is  but  the  instrument  of 
love,  and  who  is  seeking  everywhere,  in  heaven,  and  on  earth,  and  through- 
out creation,  to  purge  and  to  cleanse,  to  give  strength  to  weakness,  to  heal 
sinfulness,  aud  to  lift  up  and  perfect  the  whole  kiagdom  of  men. 

O  Lord  our  God,  we  triumph  and  rejoice  in  thee.  How  poor  we  are ! 
now  we  stumble  every  day !  How  full  of  mixtures  of  sin  are  our  best 
things!  How  languid  is  our  compassion!  How  strong  is  anger  in  us !  How 
poor  is  our  humility!  How  dominant  is  our  pride!  How  do  we  snatch 
selfishly  on  every  side,  and  return  with  empty  hands  which  should  be 
stretched  out  in  bounty.  If  we  look  at  ourselves,  and  think  of  what  thou 
art  and  what  we  have  been,  and  have  better  and  nobler  ideals  of  life,  we 
are  discontented  with  ourselves,  and  are  ashamed,  and  do  not  dare  to  lift 
up  our  faces  toward  thee,  even  though  we  know  thou  art  our  Father,  and 
dost  heal  our  iniquity  and  transgression  and  sin,  and  art  long-suffering. 
Ou !  grant  that  thy  goodness  may  lead  us  to  repentance ;  that  we  may  not 
tread  it  under  foot,  and  plunge  headlong  into  darkness  and  misrule  and  re- 
bellio'i.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  vouchsafe  to  all  who  are  in  thy  presence 
this  morning  the  manifestation  of  thyself  with  them.  Nay,  accept  the 
gladness  of  hearts  that  come  full  of  thanksgiving  to-day;  that,  looking 
upon  thy  dealings  with  them,  and  their  own  experience,  have  occasion  to 
make  mention  of  thy  name  with  songs  and  thanksgiving. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  no  hearts  may  forget  to  be  grateful 
for  all  the  meicies  which  thou  dost  bestow  upon  them,  though  they  come 
thioliset  with  judgments.  We  pray  that  we  may  remember,  day  by  day, 
how  thou  hast  attended  us  unweariedly,  bounteously  supplied  us  with  out- 
ward blessings  and  inward  consolation,  and  opened  wider  and  wider  the 
horizon  of  hope,  and  granted  us  by  faith  more  and  more  insight  into  the 
spiritual,  and  more  and  more  nearness  to  the  eternal  world. 

Grant,  O  Lord,  that  we  may  have  perpetual  gratitude  that  no  wild 
chance  is  driving  through  the  universe,  and  that  God  rules,  and  tliat  it  is  love 
that  is  providence,  and  that  in  the  end  all  things  shall  appear,  and  we  shall 
be  safishe  1.  Therefore  may  we  be  content,  striving  against  sin,  and  over- 
coming whntcver  is  evil  in  us.  so  far  as  in  us  lies.  H?re  and  there  seek- 
ing  the  be^t   things,  may   we    rejoice   that    Christ   is   i)rovi(k'nce,    that 


1  -iG  TUE  CONFLICTS  OF  LIFE. 

God  is  providonce,  and  that  all  things  shall  work  together  for  good  to  them 
wlio  love  thee. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  any  who  are  feeling  present  and  smarting 
afflictious;  and  grant  to  taem  help  according  to  their  several  needs.  O 
L  ird,  administer  consolation  to  them.  May  th-^y  find  strangely  by  their 
side  the  Spirit  of  all  consolation — the  Spirit  of  promise — the  Comforter. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  maiie  houses  upon  which  the  cloud  rests  light 
with  thy  presence.  Wilt  thou  dry  up  the  tears  of  those  who  weep.  May 
those  who  are  mourning  find  consolation  in  thee.  May  those  who  are  in 
trials  a'd  perplexities,  who  are  bearing  burdens  wliich  seem  at  times 
heavier  than  they  can  carry,  know  that  Grod  carries  their  burdens  for  them, 
though  they  thij^k  it  not,  and  that  he  who  will  not  let  a  sparrow  fall  un- 
heeded, counts  tiiem  as  worth  many  sparrows.  May  they  trust  when  they 
behold,  and  may  they  trust  when  they  can  no  longer  see.  M'ly  they  trust 
and  rejoice  in  the  Lord  when  there  is  nothing  else  In  which  th3y  can  trust 
and  rejoice. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  near  to  those  who  are  in  the  perplexities  of 
daily  duty,  fighting  the  battle  of  life  mautully,  and  wlu  are  overwearied 
and  overljurdened.    As  their  day  is,  so  miy  their  stren  :th  be  also. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing,  to-day,  to  rest  upon  the  poor 
and  outcast,  upon  the  afflicted  of  every  name.  Send  foi'th  those  who  shall 
minister  consolation  unto  them. 

Grant  that  this  day  of  rest  may  bring  consolation  and  rest  and  rejoicing 
to  those  who  are  not  gathered  in  churches ;  to  those  who  have  no  friends ;  to 
those  who  are  neglected;  to  those  who  are  poor  and  ignorant,  and  do  not 
know  the  meaning  of  blessings  that  are  wrapped  up  in  this  Lord's  Day. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  thy  churches,  and  all  thy  ministers  who 
shall  preach  to-day;  and  may  the  Gospel  have  power,  and  may  it  sink  as 
good  seed  into  the  soil  of  the  hearts  of  men,  and  bring  forth  fruit  a  hundred- 
fold. 

Be  pleased  to  bless  this  land.  Remember  the  President  of  these  United 
States,  and  all  who  are  in  aut^iority  with  him.  Remember  the  Governors 
of  the  several  States,  and  their  counselors.  Remember  judges  and  magis- 
trates. Remember  all  who  execute  the  laws  of  the  land.  Graut  that  they 
may  be  God-fearing  men  who  shall  faithfully  administer  justice  between 
man  and  man. 

Bless  all  who  are  in  the  Army  and  Navy,  and  who  serve  their  country  at 
home  or  abroad.  Remember  all  those  who  are  in  ignorance,  and  who  are 
seeking  the  way  of  knowledge  out  of  bondage.  Bless  our  schools  and 
academies  and  colleges  and  universities  and  all  the  sources  of  light  and 
intelligence. 

Unite  the  hearts  of  this  great  people.  May  those  who  come  to  us  from 
afar  mingle  with  us,  and  become  one  with  us;  and  may  wise  laws,  temper- 
erately  executed,  may  wise  institutions  having  in  them  the  welfare  of  the 
nation,  more  and  more  prevail  against  animalism  and  injustice  and  wanton- 
ness; and  may  this  great  people  be  held  together  by  the  living  spirit  of  the 
Gospel  of  Ctirist  Jesus.  And  may  its  prosperity  lead  all  things  from  dark- 
ness and  barbarity  toward  intelligence  and  true  and  undeliled  religion. 
And  grant  that  the  day  may  be  hastened  when  all  nations  shall  know  the 
Lord  the  world  over.     And  may  all  thy  glowing  promises  be  fulfilled. 

Hear  us,  O  Lord,  in  these  our  supplications,  and  answer  us  according  to 
the  multitude  of  thy  tender  mercies.  And  to  thy  name,  Fathei',  Son,  and 
Spirit,  shall  be  praises,  everlasting.    Amen. 


IX. 

The  Unity  of  Men, 


INVOCATION. 

We  beseech  of  thee,  our  Father,  that  thou  wilt  enlarge  our  understanding. 
By  thine  own  inspiration  render  sensitive  all  our  best  affections,  that  they 
may  reflect  something  of  thee  this  day.  May  we  lay  aside  our  careless 
thoughts,  whereby  we  have  tarnished  thy  glory.  Give  us  fuller  and  clearer 
and  sweeter  views  of  what  thou  art,  and  of  what  shall  be  revealed  in  us  when 
we  are  brought  home  to  our  Father's  house.  Grant,  we  pray  thee,  this  morn- 
ing, that  thy  truth  may  be  received  in  simplicity,  and  with  power  from  on 
high.  Grant  that  the  services  of  devotion  may  rise  from  our  affections,  and 
be  grateful  to  thee.  May  it  be  to  thee  what  the  coming  home  of  our  children 
is  to  us,  when,  having  been  long  absent,  they  gather  around  about  us.  May 
we  worship  thee  by  better  lives,  and  liy  a  more  holy  surrender  of  ourselves 
to  thy  great  goodness  and  mercy.  We  pray  that  every  service — the  fellowship 
of  song,  the  communion  of  prayer,  and  the  meditation  of  our  hearts— may 
be  acceptable  in  thy  sight,  O  Lord  our  God.    Amen. 


THE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 


"  Ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Zion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the  living  God,  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  an  innumerable  company  of  angels,  to  the 
general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  written  in  heaven, 
aod  to  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect, 
and  to  Jesus  the  mediator  of  the  new  covenant,  and  to  the  blood  of 
sprinkling,  that  speaketh  better  things  than  thatof  Abel."— Heb.  xii.,  22-24. 


There  is  much,  particularly  in  the  later  writings  of  the  New- 
Testament,  which  we  cannot  fully  understand  unless  we  go  back 
and  put  ourselves,  to  a  certain  degree,  in  the  places  of  those  to 
whom  the  words  were  written.  The  early  believers  in  Christ  sub- 
jected themselves  to  almost  every  inconvenience,  and  in  many  in- 
stances to  every  persecution,  which  it  was  possible  for  men  to  meet. 
They  were  regarded  as  unpatriotic — as  having  forsaken  the  religion 
of  their  fathers ;  for  with  the  Jews  civil  and  religious  liberty  were 
so  blended  that  to  leave  one  was  to  leave  the  other.  It  was  a  thing: 
hard  to  be  borne  (especially  by  a  generous  heart  conscious  of  loving 
his  country)  to  be  supposed  to  be  indifferent  to  that  country,  and 
a  traitor  to  it.  They  were  charged  with  having  taken  up  a  new 
and  idolatrous  faith.  The  whole  history  of  God's  dealings  with  his 
chosen  people,  chastising  them  for  wandering  from  a  belief  in  the 
true  God  to  a  belief  in  impostors  and  idols,  was  employed  against 
them.  They  were  cast  out.  They  were,  so  to  speak,  set  up  as  a 
mark.     They  were  reviled  on  every  hand. 

That  was  not  all.  If  you  consider  how  much  men  depend  for 
their  stability  in  life  upon  the  senses ;  if  you  reflect  that  while  the 
immediate  Jews  were  not  cast  out  of  the  temple,  nor  forbidden  the 
use  of  the  Mosaic  economy,  they  were  taught  that  tlie  religion  of 
Christ  was  an  interior  and  invisible  religion,  and  that  ordinances 
had  come  near  to  their  end,  and  that  they  might  be  dispensed  with 
without  any  breach  of  fiiitli  or  fidelity ;  if  you  take  into  consider- 
ation what  it  was,  in  the  midst  of  a  community  who  had  been 
educated  under  the  influence  of  the  most  gorgeous  ritual  ever  known, 
and  wlio  had  been  accustomed  to  express  their  thoughts  and  emo- 

SrxDAY   MOKXINO,  May  5,  1872.     Lessox  :    1    COR.  I.  lS-31.    HYMNS  (Plymouth  Collec- 
tion): Nos.  364,  531. 


150  THE  UNIT!  OF  MEN. 

tions  by  some  symbol  or  type  or  physical  method,  to  bring  in  a  sys- 
tem which  set  at  naught  all  symbols  and  types  and  physical 
methods,  and  substituted  that  which  had  no  outward  manifestation, 
nothing  but  exposition — as  the  apostle  says,  to  bring  to  naught  that 
which  was  by  that  which  was  not — in  other  words,  to  present  truths 
which  had  no  visible  exponent ;  if  you  ponder  these  things  you  will 
perceive  how  these  men  must  have  been  embarrassed  and  harassed. 
They  were  bewildered.  On  the  one  side  they  were  reproached  for  being 
unpatriotic  and  irreligious,  and  for  abandoning  their  families  and 
their  faith ;  and  on  the  other  side  they  were  told  that  ordinances 
were  done  with  ;  that  days  had  no  more  sanctity ;  and  that  there  had 
been  ushered  in  a  spiritual  invisible  kingdom  of  the  Saviour — a 
kingdom  that  they  could  not  see  here,  but  that  they  would  see  in 
heaven.  They  seemed  to  be  entangled  in  a  net  which  drew  them 
away  from  the  visible  without  giving  them  any  clear  revelation  of 
the  mere  invisible  which  was  to  take  its  place. 

The  long  line  of  old  Jews  was  therefore  summoned  up.  "  Do 
you  suppose,"  said  the  writer  in  Hebrews,  "  that  you  are  disbranched 
from  the  tree,  and  that  that  to  which  you  are  called  amounts  to  an 
unpatriotic  abandonment  of  old  historic  grounds  ?  You  are  called 
to  a  life  of  faith,  and  every  one  of  these  worthies  became  what  he 
was  by  faith.  Every  one  of  them  relied  upon  the  exercise  of  that 
principle  which  we  call  you  to  exercise."  The  roll  was  called,  and 
from  the  ages  that  had  passed  rose  one  venerable  head,  and  another. 
One  after  another  responded,  till  the  Jewish  mind  fairly  thrilled 
with  ecstatic  pride  in  its  national  history.  Name  upon  name  was 
enumerated ;  and  it  was  declared,  "  These  died  in  faith  ;  and  these 
suffered  in  faith ;  and  these  lived  by  faith ;  and  these  conquered 
by  faith." 

What  is  faith  ?  It  is  the  power  to  see  things  which  have  no 
visible  nor  sensuous  representation.  It  is  the  power  to  apprehend 
principles  instead  of  things  material.  It  is  the  power  to  live  in  the 
presence  of  things  invisible,  not  incarnated,  and  to  perceive  them 
more  clearly  than  the  things  which  come  in  ab  the  eye-gate  or  the 
ear-gate.  And  all  the  great  heroes  who  had  gone  before  lived  by 
faith. 

Then,  after  the  enumeration  of  these  men  who  died  by  faith, 
comes  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Hebrews.  And  a  blessed  chapter  it 
is.  That  twelfth  chapter  of  Hebrews  is  a  mountain  of  conso- 
lation. That  twelfth  chapter  of  Hebrews,  if  it  were  sounded  in 
music,  would  overtop  Beethoven's  noblest  symphonies.  It  is 
one  of  those  chapters  which  deals  at  once  with  things  of  the 
present  and   things  of  the  future — with  things  relating  to  this 


THE  VNITY  OF  MEif.  151 

world  and  things  relating  to  the  kingdom  of  the  invisible  :  and  it 
stands  pouring  down  the  tide  of  time  a  song  of  consolation,  every 
word  of  which  is  sweetness  to  the  souls  of  those  who  suffer.  It 
opens  with  the  declaration  that  God  is  a  Father,  and  that  men  must 
suffer,  and  that  suffering  is  the  evidence  of  God's  paternity,  and 
of  their  filial  relations  to  him.  It  goes  on,  after  turning  the  theme 
in  various  ways,  to  declare  that  in  suffering  they  are  not  cast  out  by 
reason  of  God's  anger,  but  that,  contrariwise,  by  reason  of  their 
adhesion  to  Christ,  they  are  called,  through  the  very  road  of  suffer- 
ing by  which  he  came  to  a  glorious  unity,  and  to  a  companionship 
most  august. 

And  then,  in  order  to  touch  the  Jewish  imagination  as  sympa- 
thetically as  possible,  the  writer  told  them  that  they  had  come,  not 
to  the  august  things  which  their  fathers  saw,  but  to  something 
transcendently  nobler.  The  old  lay  level  with  the  earth ;  but  the 
ncAV  was  something  that  was  exalted  into  the  invisible  realm. 

"  Ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Zion." 

Not  unto  the  Mount  Zion  which  was  so  dear  to  every  Jew,  but 
unto  that  other  Mount  Zion,  compared  with  which,  as  they  looked 
upon  it,  this  one  was  as  a  little  hill.  If  they  had  stood,  looking 
from  the  east  upon  Mount  Zion,  seeing  it,  as  in  a  summer  after- 
noon we  often  see  lifted  up  against  the  sky  mountain  ranges,  or 
clouds,  Avhicli  look  like  vast  mountains,  magnificent  in  altitude 
and  innumerable  in  aggregation,  the  apostle  might  have  told  them 
that  they  had  come  to  Mount  Zion  as  thus  typified.  Mount  Zion  as 
seen  from  over  the  hill  of  Bethany  ?  No  ;  but  Mount  Zion  above 
that,  glorious,  transfigured. 

"  Ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Zion,  and  unt#  the  city  of  the  living  God,  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  an  innumerable  company  of  angels  [for  at  this 
time,  to  the  apostle's  eye  of  faith,  all  the  heaven  was  filled  with  angels. 
Round  and  round  the  whole  circuit,  to  his  eye,  fire  flashed  from  their  wings], 
to  the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  written  in 
heaven,  and  to  God  the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  per- 
fect, and  to  Jesus  the  mediator  of  the  new  covenant,  and  to  the  blood  of 
sprinkling  that  speaketh  better  things  than  that  of  Abel." 

Ye  new-born  creatures ;  ye  that  are  solitary  and  alone ;  ye 
homeless  ones ;  ye  without  a  country  ;  ye  cast  out,  behold  that 
wliich  has  happened.  See  that  you  have  come  to  a  nobler  Zion  than 
the  old  Zion,  and  to  a  nobler  Jerusalem  than  the  old  Jerusalem.  To 
the  city  of  the  living,  all-creating  God,  full  of  light  and  glory,  ye 
are  come.  Ye  are  come,  not  to  the  temple  ring,  not  to  the  syna- 
gogical  clique,  but  to  the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first- 
born, which  are  written  in  heaven.  Ye  are  come  not  to  tliis  teacher 
nor  that  instructor  of  narrow  mind,  but  to  the  spirits  of  just  men 


152  THE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 

made  perfect,  gathered  out  of  every  age.  Ye  belong  to  their  com- 
pany. And  ye  are  come  to  Jesus,  the  mediator  of  the  new  covenant, 
and  to  his  blood,  to  that  which  labors  on  earth  and  reigns  in 
heaven.     All  these  are  yours. 

The  outside  of  their  religion  was  ignoble  enough ;  a  very  plain 
and  a  very  poor  thing  it  was  to  the  physical  eye ;  but  to  one  who 
would  shut  his  eyes,  and  view  the  inside,  it  was  royal. 

To  be  a  Christian  in  those  early  days  was  a  thing  of  great  glory. 
It  joined  a  man  to  that  which  was  best  in  the  experience  of  the 
human  race.  It  took  hues  from  all  that  had  passed,  and  borrowed 
radiance  from  all  that  was  to  come.  It  went  above  the  horizon,  and 
took  something  from  the  Father,  and  something  from  the  Son,  and 
something  from  the  whole  heavenly  host.  It  derived  something 
from  all  that  was  noble  and  divine  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest 
period  of  the  world.  And  the  apostle  says  to  men,  "  This  is  yours." 
What  a  comfort  it  Avould  be  to  them  if  they  could  but  realize 
it,  and  live  consciously  in  such  a  glorious  unity  I 

It'  is  of  this  unity  of  men  with  all  that  is  t];^nscendent,  all  that 
is  best,  and  all  that  is  universal,  that  I  shall  speak  this  morning. 

All  men  are  united  together  in  the  world  in  various  external 
ways.  They  are  important  ways  ;  and  yet  they  are  not  the  most 
important.  We  are  united  to  nationalities  who  speak  the  same 
tongue  that  we  do.  We  are  united  in  states,  in  cities,  and  in 
neighborhoods.  In  neighborhoods  we  are  united  by  affiliations  of 
the  household.  And  these  things  we  do  not  despise  ;  we  recognize 
their  benefits  ;  but  we  recognize  that  there  are  unities  which  trans- 
cend these  ;  that  are  larger  than  they  are  ;  that  have  a  significance 
which  does  not  belong  to  them. 

All  men  are  united  together  by  a  common  weakness.  They  are 
united  by  a  common  origin.  From  the  dust  they  came,  and  they 
bear  the  marks  of  it.  All  are  united  together  by  their  liability  to 
temptation  ;  by  the  ease  with  which  they  fall ;  by  the  power  of  the 
senses  and  the  feebleness  of  faith.  All  are  united  together  by  a 
common  struggle — that  struggle  by  which  they  seek  to  subdue  the 
flesh  to  the  control  of  the  spirit.  "Whatever  may  be  the  philosophy 
of  sin,  whatever  may  be  the  theory  as  to  human  origin,  there  is  a 
struggle  going  on  in  the  world  among  all  men  who  seek  to  be  good, 
or  wise,  or  true,  or  noble,  and  consequently  among  all  who  are  under 
the  light  of  Christianity  ;  and  they  are  united  together  by  this 
common  struggle. 

As  men  in  a  hospital  come  thei'e  from  everywhere — from  this 
battle-field  and  from  that  battle-field,  from  this  camp  and  from  that 
camp — to   overcome  disease,  and  break   away  from  its   entangle- 


THE  UNITY  OF  MEN.  153 

ments,  and  gain  the  freedom  of  health  again  ;  so,  not  stopping  to 
discuss  the  different  philosophies  of  the  various  schools,  but  recog- 
nizing them  all  as  of  relative  importance,  there  is  one  fact  that  all 
unite  in  acknoAvledging.  It  is  admitted  by  all  that  everybody  is 
seeking  to  rise  from  the  low  to  the  high  ;  from  the  weak  to  the 
strong  ;  from  the  impure  to  the  pure.  And  point  me  to  that  man 
who  has  had  no  struggle  ;  point  me  to  that  man  who  has  never 
reached  manhood  by  any  hard  climbing  or  by  any  battles ;  point 
me  to  that  man  who  has  never  said  to  his  pride,  nor  had  occasion 
to  say  to  it,  "  Why  doest  thou  so  ?"  point  me  to  that  man  who 
has  had  no  combat  with  selfishness,  and  appetite,  and  passion  ; 
point  me  to  that  man  who  has  had  no  trial  nor  struggle  with  him- 
self ;  for  I  have  his  name.  I  know  who  he  is.  God  has  baptized 
him,  and  called  him  Bastard. 

"  If  ye  be  without  chastisement,  whereof  all  are  partakers,  then  are  ye 
bastards,  and  not  sons." 

The  sign  of  royal  birth  is  that  men  all  start  together  at  a  low 
point,  and  that  they  are  all  together  striving  up  toward  a  higher 
and  an  ideal  manhood.  It  is  this  strife  that  is  common  to  us  all,  and 
that  unites  us  all.  All  of  us  are  of  the  earth  earthy ;  and  all  of  us, 
in  varying  degrees,  are,  through  suffering,  through  tears,  through 
anxieties,  through  struggles,  and  through  anguish  often,  working 
our  way  up  from  a  low  point  to  a  higher  one.  We  are  all  in  a  great 
conflict.  And  as  no  flowers  grow  in  our  gardens  unless  it  please  God 
to  send  dews  and  showers  upon  them ;  so  tears  make  the  heart  rich. 
It  is  by  trials  that  God  develoj^s  men.  Sufferings  and  sorrows  are 
but  birth-pains  ;  and  we  are  born  into  a  higher  realm  if  we  survive 
them.  If  our  faith  fail,  and  we  g(j  down  under  them,  they  destroy 
us  ;  but  if  we  understand  the  organization  in  which  we  are  living, 
if  we  recognize  the  fact  that  we  spring  from  the  dust,  and  are  all 
seeking,  not  knowing  what  it  is,  our  divine  nature,  then  we  are 
more  than  we  seem. 

Is  there  no  call  in  you,  the  meaning  of  Avhich  you  cannot  tell  ? 
Have  you  never  sat  on  summer  evenings,  and  heard  sounds  that 
seemed  to  you  to  come  from  the  forest  or  from  the  mountain,  or 
that  seemed  almost  to  drop  down  from  the  heavens,  playing  weii'dly 
Avith  your  imagination  ?  Has  it  never  seemed  as  though  voices 
called  you  starward  and  upward  ?  Men  have  yearnings  and  long- 
ings and  importunities  which  are  inchoate,  and  which  they  do  not 
understand.  The  Spirit  is  praying  through  us  with  syllables  which 
cannot  be  articulated. 

Men  are  good  or  bad  relatively.  They  are  all  good,  and  they  are 
all  l)!^d.     There  is  something  of  good  in  the  worst  of  them,  and  there 


154  TEE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 

is  something  of  bad  in  the  best  of  them.  Not  that  I  would  take  the 
foundation  out  from  under  anybody's  feet ;  but  that  which  is  more 
common  than  any  other  one  thing  is  limitation,  circumscription, 
weakness,  imperfection ;  breaking  out,  as  men  grow  in  strength,  into 
wrong,  into  sin,  with  all  its  attendant  manifestations  of  fear,'  and 
remorse,  and  repentance,  with  all  those  elements  which  constitute 
man  as  a  fallible,  erring  creature,  and  with  all  those  aspirations 
which  by  the  Spirit  of  God  are  breathed  in  upon  the  soul.  Man, 
himself,  an  imperfect  being,  is  joined  to  the  great  band  and  brother- 
hood of  imperfect  beings  in  human  life. 

Men  are  united,  too,  in  the  reign  of  care  in  this  world.  In  other 
words,  nobody  comes  into  life  with  a  trade  in  his  hand,  but  with  a 
hand  that  is  set  to  learn  a  trade.  Nobody  comes  into  life  with  a 
philosophy  in  his  head,  but  with  a  head  that  is  set  to  learn  philoso- 
phy. All  men  come  into  this  life  unskillful,  not  knowing  the  sea- 
sons, nor  the  soil,  nor  the  ways  and  manners  and  methods  of  society. 
The  whole  world  is  born  ignorant.  The  entire  race  come  into  the 
world  as  blind  as  a  bat,  stumbling  over  the  threshold.  Everybody 
has  to  learn  through  endeavors  and  mistakes.  No  man  learns  with- 
out finger-cuttings,  and  weariness  of  feet,  and  toil  of  arms.  Every- 
thing has  to  be  learned.  Nobody  can  transmit  anything  except 
mere  tendencies.  Wisdom  has  to  be  acquired ;  it  is  never  inherited. 
Shakespeare's  children,  if  he  had  had  any,  would  have  had  to  learn 
what  they  knew  in  the  great  school  of  toil  and  care  and  effort 
and  mistake.  All  mankind  are  united  in  learning  how  to  get 
through  life.  The  great  problem  of  this  world  is  how  to  main- 
tain manhood  while  you  are  feeding  through  the  mouth,  through 
the  ear,  and  through  the  eye.  .That  which  concerns  us  most  is  to 
know  how  to  be  a  child  of  God  while  we  are  trying  to  subdue  the 
earth,  and  all  the  methods  of  it. 

Into  this  fellowship,  into  this  school,  into  this  great  primal  ne- 
cessity, all  men  are  born.  There  is  the  great  unity  of  care  and  bur- 
den and  toil  which  joins  the  race  together.  Some  shoulders  are 
broad,  and  cany  the  load  easily,  but  other  shoulders  are  narroAV  and 
collapse  under  it.  Apparently,  some  are  meant  for  conquerors,  and 
some  for  captives,  in  the  great  struggle.  But  wherever,  under  the 
heavens,  men  aspire,  everybody  has  the  dust-mark  on  him.  lie  treads 
the  road  of  toil,  and  bears  its  impress. 

We  are  -not  half  as  anxious  to  trace  our  pedigree  in  this  direction 
as  we  are  in  the  other.  If  we  can  trace  our  ancestry  back  to 
some  great  Earl;  if  we  can  trace  our  lineage  back  to  Alfred, 
or  along  some  line  of  illustrious  men,  how  noble,  we  think  that! 
But  when  Mr.  Darwin  suggests  that  we  should  trace  our  pedi- 


THE  UNITY  OF  MEN.  155 

gree  the  other  way,  we  are  not  so  anxious  to  do  it — though  I  think 
that  in  many  respects  it  would  be  easier  !  Disguise  it  as  you  will,  the 
points  in  which  we  are  alike  are  more  in  the  animal  direction  than  in 
any  other.  AV'e  are  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Our  attributal  qualities  are 
those  of  earthiness.  And  for  ages  to  come  men  will  be  more  united 
by  their  infirmities  and  troubles  and  infelicities,  than  by  their  at- 
tainments in  other  directions. 

Men  are  also  united  in  the  essential  ideas  of  Christian  manhood. 
We  are  united  in  those  germ-ideas  which  belong  to  all  races.  They 
are  undeveloped  in  some,  fully  developed  in  others,  and  largely  fruit- 
ful in  still  others.  We  are  united  in  all  those  constituent  elements 
which  inhere  in  men  as  discriminated  from  any  of  the  lower  races. 
We  may  differ  as  to  the  magnitude  of  our  excellences,  as  to  their 
order,  and  as  to  their  causation ;  but  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  as  they 
are  revealed  in  men,  and  as  they  are  catalogued  in  the  Word  of  God, 
are  the  creed  of  Christendom. 

It  is  said  that  you  never  can  unite  men  on  any  one  creed.  I  say 
there  is  a  creed  which  by  and  by  you  cannot  keep  men  disunited 
upon.  It  is  contained  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Galatians.  The  arti- 
cles of  it  I  will  read.  I  Inay  call  it  a  creed.  It  is  not  the  Apostles' 
Creed;  nor  is  it  theNicene  Creed;  neither  is  it  that  Chinese  puzzle 
called  the  Athanasian  Creed.  It  may  be  called,  I  think,  the  Creed 
of  the  Spirit.  The  articles  of  it  are  Love.,  Joy.,  Peace.,  Long-suffer- 
ing., Geyitleness.,  Goodness,  Faith,  Meekness,  Temperance.  These 
constitute  that  creed.  And  I  declare  that  it  is  what  every  man  on 
the  globe,  in  his  better  moods,  recognizes  as  the  ideal  of  his  true 
manhood.  Men  do  not  know  what  they  believe  about  the  churches, 
for  the  best  of  all  reasons,  that  the  churches  themselves,  half  the 
time,  do  not  know  what  they  believe.  They  do  not  know  what  they 
believe  in  respect  to  rituals.  They  quarrel  about  these,  and  about 
the  whole  machinery  of  religion.  So  it  is  until  you  rise  to  a  con- 
ception of  true  manhood.  But  no  man  ever  sees  true  manhood  that  it 
does  not  touch  something  in  him.  Everything  responds  to  it.  We 
go  back  to  history  and  glean  for  those  traits  of  which  is  composed. 
If  we  find  meekness  in  a  man  of  power,  it  glows  as  a  jewel  on  the 
bosom  of  beauty.  If  we  find  a  man  who  abounds  in  goodness,  how 
all  the  world  bows  down  to  it!  We  go  around  gathering  these 
traits,  one  here  and  another  there.  We  dive  for  them  as  men  dive 
for  the  pearl  oyster.  We  seek  for  them  as  men  seek  for  hidden 
treasures.  And  all  the  world  admires  them.  They  are  traits  which 
unite  men. 

I  go  out  among  men  and  say,  '^Do  you  believe  in  religion?" 
"No,"  they  say,  "I  do  not  believe  in  religion."     "Do  you  not  be- 


156  TEE  mriTJ  OF  MEN. 

lieve  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  ?"  "  No,  I  do  not  believe  in  the 
inspiration  of  that  old  book,  which  was  juggled  together,  and  which 
has  come  down  from  generation  to  generation,  musty  and  dusty,  to 
us."  "Do  you  not  believe  in  Sunday?"  "Sunday!  that  priest's 
noose  by  which  to  catch  the  silly  and  weak  ?  No,  I  do  not  believe 
in  that."  "  Do  you  not  believe  in  the  divinity  of  Christ  ?"  "  T  do 
not  believe  there  was  any  Christ."  "'  Do  you  not  believe  that  men 
need  a  sovereign  change  ?  Do  you  not  believe  that  they  need  to  be 
born  into  the  church  ?"  "The  church !  I  would  overturn  every  church 
on  earth  if  I  could."  "  You  believe  in  something,  do  you  not  ?  Do 
you  not  believe  in  love  ?"  "'  Oh,  yes,  I  believe  in  love."  "  Do  you 
not  believe  in  joy,  when  it  is  a  pure  article  ?"  "Yes, yes, I  believe  in 
joy.  That  fell  from  the  crystal  spheres.  Certainly,  I  believe  in  joy." 
"  Do  you  not  believe  in  tranquillity,  inward  and  outward  ?"  "  Oh, 
yes,  everybody  believes  in  that."  "  Do  you  not  believe  in  peace  ?" 
"Why, yes, I  believe  in  peace.  I  sigh  for  it.  Oh, that  I  might  have 
one  hour  of  such  peace  as  I  can  think  of!"  "Do  you  not  believe  in 
long-suffering  ?  When  you  see  a  man,  in  great  exigencies,  stand 
up  firmly  for  what  he  believes  to  be  right,  and  suffer  persecittion  and 
want,  and  never  say  a  word,  then  do  you  not  believe  in  it  ?"  "  Yes, 
I  believe  in  that.  It  is  magnificent,  sublime.  There  is  but  one  man 
in  a  thousand  who  could  suffer  in  that  way."  "  Do  you  not  believe 
in  gentleness  ?"  "  Oh,  yes.  My  mother  was  a  very  angel  of  gentle- 
ness. She  used  to  move  like  the  moonlight  by  night,  and  like  the 
sunlight  by  day.  No  clock  was  ever  so  steady  in  striking  the  hours 
as  was  she  in  the  exhibition  of  gentleness.  It  reconciles  me  to  the 
sex  when  I  think  of  my  mother."  "  Do  you  not  believe  in  good- 
ness ?"  "  Well,  yes — I  should  believe  in  it  if  I  could  see  it.  I  be- 
lieve •  there  is  mighty  little  of  it,  and  that  what  there  is  is  a  poor 
importation.  Oh,  yes,  I  believe  in  goodness.  Those  bountiful 
hearts,  those  summer-souls,  those  great  natures  which  are  often- 
times sprawling  like  an  apple-tree,  and  yet  full  of  blossoms,  as  next 
week  the  apple-trees  w^ill  be  in  all  our  orchards — I  believe  in  these, 
as  the  exponents  of  goodness,  making  everybody  haj)py  where  they 
go,  and  shedding  fragrance,  like  gardens  in  the  night,  which  men 
perceive,  though  they  cannot  see  the  source  of  it.  I  do  believe  in 
goodness."  "  Do  you  not  believe  in  faith  ?"  "  Ah !  now  you  are 
coming  to  theology.  No,  I  do  not  believe  in  faith."  "  I  suppose 
you  believe  there  is  a  great  realm  of  thought  and  aspiration?" 
"  I  believe  that  no  man  should  live  like  a  crawfish,  or  like  a  pig.  I 
believe  that  a  man  ought  to  have  elevated  thoughts  and  lofty  aspi- 
rations. I  believe  that  a  man  should  be  as  large  as  the  universe  in 
his  conceptions."    "  Well,  that  is  what  we  mean  by  faith — living 


THE  UN  ITT  OF  MEN.  157 

for  ideas — for  things  ineffable — for  that  whicli  appeals  to  something 
higher  than  the  senses — to  something  which  does  not  belong  to  the 
animal."  "  All  right,  then,  if  that  is  faith.  Yes,  I  believe  in  that." 
"  Do  you  not  believe  in  meekness  ?"  "What  do  you  mean  by 
meekness  ?"  "  Well,  suppose  a  great  nature,  in  the  midst  of 
traitors,  should  stand  for  his  country ;  suppose  he  should  stand  faith- 
ful among  the  faithless  multitude ;  suppose,  while  everybody  was 
beating  on  him  as  the  surf  beats  on  the  shore,  he  should  stand,  full 
of  calmness,  and  full  of  soul-gentleness ;  suppose  under  such  mighty 
provocation  he  should  remain  steadfast,  immovable,  but  without 
violence  or  irritability,  do  you  not  think  that  would  be  glorious  ?" 
"  Yes,  it  would  be  glorious,  magnificent,  beautiful,  if  it  were  possi- 
ble ;  but  it  is  not  possible."  "  Do  you  not  believe  in  self-restraint  ?" 
"  Of  course  I  do.  Every  man  should  have  self-restraint.  A  man 
without  self-restraint  is  like  a  barrel  Avithout  hoops,  that  tumbles 
to  pieces."  "Ah  !  then,  you  believe  in  all  these  things  :  you  believe 
in  love,  in  joy,  in  peace,  in  long-suffering,  in  gentleness,  in  faith,  in 
meekness,  in  temperance." 

Now,  men  and  brethren,  these  are  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  These 
are  embodied  in  the  ideal  work  of  God  in  this  world.  That  work  is 
to  create  in  the  hearts  of  men  just  these  fruits ;  and  I  call  this 
enumeration  of  them  the  Creed  of  Christianity.  I  believe  the  time 
will  come  when  we  shall  see  this  creed,  not  alone  in  books,  but  in 
men  and  women,  and  in  multitudes  of  them.  I  believe  the  time 
will  come  Avhen  it  will  be  so  believed  and  practiced  that  there  will 
not  be  an  infidel  left.  Let  me  take  a  Christian  who  is  one,  and  who 
is  fruitful  in  these  qualities;  and  I  will  quench  every  spark  of  infi- 
delity that  there  is  in  the  world.  Let  me  show  Christianity,  not  in 
ideas  but  in  living  men,  and  in  companies  of  them,  and  it  will  be 
triumphant  wherever  it  is  seen. 

Is  there  anything  that  Protestants  repudiate  so  much  as  Roman 
Catholics  ?  Is  there  anything  that  they  have  a  more  salutary  lior- 
ror  of  than  these  same  Eoman  Catholics  ?  And  yet,  when  the  war 
is  raging,  and  there  is  pestilence  in  the  camp,  and  men  are  sick  and 
dying  in  the  hospitals,  let  those  meek-eyed  Sisters  of  Mercy  go  there 
and  minister  to  the  wants  of  Protestant  boys,  being  tender  and 
gentle  with  them,  never  seeking  to  breathe  any  ideas  into  their 
minds  that  their  mothers  would  not,  night  and  day  walking  in  and 
out  full  of  disinterestedness  and  delicacy,  and  diffusing  about  them 
an  influence  of  cheer  and  hope  ;  and  let  those  noble  boys  go  home ; 
and  let  any  man  dare  to  speak  a  word  against  these  kind  creatures, 
and  they  will  turn  with  clenched  hand,  and  say,  "  I  will  beat  you  to 
the  dust  if  you  speak  against  them,  just  as  quick  as  I  would  if  you 
spoke  against  my  mother  or  my  sister !" 


158  THE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 

What  has  overcome  their  prejudice  against  the  Catholics  ?  Is  it 
the  edict  of  the  Pope  ?  Is  it  the  arguments  of  the  priests  ?  Is  it 
the  influence  of  the  adherents  of  that  church  ?  Is  it  any  chann 
of  its  service?  Xo,  it  is  the  pure  lives  of  some  of  its  members. 
Those  are  arguments  which  no  man  wants  to  refute.  If  there  were 
more  such  lives  there  would  be  less  atheism. 

Do  you  suppose  that  men  would  conspire  to  kick  out  of  the 
heavens  the  sun,  which  is  the  source  of  their  harvests,  and  all  that 
is  beautiful,  and  everything  that  makes  life  desirable  ?  Men  want 
the  sun.  And  do  /ou  suppose  that  if  God  were  pictured  to  men  as 
transcendent  in  beauty,  as  glorious  in  holiness,  and  as  in  sympathy 
with  men,  they  would  want  to  be  atheists  ?  They  would  call  out 
for  him.  They  would  watch  for  him  as  in  the  night  men  watch  for 
the  morning.  But  if  God  is  held  up  as  a  crystal,  cut  on  the  edges, 
I  do  not  wonder  that  men  are  atheistic,  pantheistic  and  infidel. 
And  if  you  take  Christianity  according  to  your  sect,  or  church,  or 
creed,  and  offer  it  to  men,  I  do  not  wonder  that  they  feel  that 
they  are  fed  with  sand  or  bran.  But  if  you  bring  the  fniit  of  the 
Spirit  to  men  they  will  not  reject  it ;  they  will  accept  it  with  glad- 
ness. 

That  church  which  has  the  power  of  generating  the  most  of  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  in  feeling  and  in  conduct,  will  triumph  in  tlie  end. 
For  Christ  shall  triumph  through  the  goodness  which  he  implants 
in  the  bosoms  of  his  disciples. 

How  sad  are  the  battles  Avliich  we  are  fighting!'  I  suppose  we 
have  a  great  many  Arminians  here  this  morning.  Ah !  you  do  not 
know  what  a  temptation  I  feel  to  give  a  shot  at  Arminianism ! 

There  are  a  great  many  Episcopalians  here.  How  I  should  like 
to  give  a  slap  at  the  Bishops !  There  are  a  great  many  Unitarians 
here.  What  a  capital  chance  this  would  be  to  bring  my  artillery  to 
bear  on  their  theology  !  There  are  a  great  many  Universalists  here. 
How  I  should  like  to  hold  their  ideas  of  the  goodness  of  God  up  to 
ridicule  and  contempt ! 

At  a  horticultural  show,  there  is  a  table  running  through  a  long 
hall  for  the  exhibition  of  fruit ;  and  this  table  is  divided  up  into 
about  tAventy-five  compartments  which  are  assigned  to  as  many 
exhibitors  for  the  display  of  their  productions.  I  go  along  the  table 
and  discuss  the  merits  of  the  various  articles.  Here  is  a  man  who 
has  pears,  and  apples,  and  peaches,  and  cherries,  and  plums.  They 
are  not  very  good ;  they  are  fair ;  they  are  about  as  good  as  the 
average  of  the  fruit  on  the  table  ;  but  they  do  not  beat  anybody 
else's.  I  see  fruit  that  is  just  as  good  all  the  way  down  the  table. 
But  the  man  to  whom  it  belongs  says,  "  Mine  ought  to  take  the 


THE  UNITY  OF  MEN.  159 

premium."  "  Why  ?"  I  say.  "  Because  it  was  raised  on  ground  whose 
title  goes  back  to  the  flood.  No  man  has  a  right  to  claim  the  premium 
unless  he  can  show  that  the  title  of  his  land  goes  clear  down  to  the 
flood.  I  can  prove  that  my  title  is  clear,  and  I  insist  upon  it  that  I 
ought  to  have  the  premium.  That  other  fruit  may  have  some 
ground  for  pretense,  but  it  is  uncovenanted." 

I  go  to  the  next  compartment,  and  I  say  to  the  man  there, 
"  Your  fruit  looks  fair.  It  is  about  on  an  average  with  the  rest." 
"  On  an  average  with  the  rest !  There  is  nothing  like  it  on  the 
table."  "Why  so?"  "Because  it  was  raised  under  glass.  Those 
other  fellows  raised  theirs  in  the  open  air.  This  is  church-fruit.  It 
was  all  raised  in  definite  enclosures,  according  to  prescriptions  which 
have  come  down  from  generation  to  generation.  In  judging  of  my 
fruit,  you  must  take  into  consideration  that  it  was  raised  according 
to  the  ordinances.  It  is  pattern-fruit."  He  insists  that  his  fruit  is 
better  than  any  of  the  rest  on  account  of  the  way  in  which  he  raised 
it. 

I  go  to  the  next  compartment.  There  I  see  some  magnificent 
fruit,  and  I  say  to  the  man,  "  Where  did  you  raise  this  fruit  ?"  He 
says,  "  It  came  from  the  highway  near  my  house."  "  From  the 
highway  ?"  "  Yes.  It  grew  on  a  wilding  that  I  found  growing 
there.  I  cleared  away  the  brush  that  w^as  choking  it,  and  trimmed 
it  a  little,  and  it  produced  this  fruit."  "  Well,"  I  say,  "  I  think  that 
is  the  best  fruit  on  the  table."  From  the  whole  length  of  the  table, 
on  both  sides,  there  arises  the  exclamation,  "  What !  are  you  going 
to  give  that  man  the  premium,  who  has  no  title  for  his  land,  no 
greenhouse,  and  nothing  but  the  highway  to  raise  his  fruit  in  ? 
What  sort  of  encouragement  is  that  to  regular  fruit-growers?" 
The  whole  commotion  is  stopped  by  the  man  who  has  the  awarding 
of  the  premium,  saying,  "  The  order  of  this  show  is,  By  their  fruits 
shall  ye  Tcnoxo  them."  And  in  determining  which  of  these  men 
shall  have  thei3remium,  he  does  judge  by  their  fruit. 

When  the  Lord  comes  to  give  his  decision  in  the  great  pomo- 
logical  fair  of  the  future,  I  think  he  will  judge  in  the  same  Avay, 
and  say,  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

My  brethren,  look  at  the  lives  of  Christians ;  look  at  the  mag- 
nanimities of  the  sects ;  look  at  the  disinterestedness  of  men  who. 
arc  living  for  others  instead  of  themselves ;  look  at  the  men  who. 
lay  down  their  lives  for  their  fellow  men  ;  look  at  the  men  who  shed 
the  most  tears  for  the  poor  and  needy;  look  at  the  men  who 
have  the  least  self-indulgence  and  the  least  selfishness — look  at  these 
things  if  you  would  see  an  exhibition  of  true  Christianity— if  you 
would  see  real  orthodoxy.     The  fruit  of  the  Spirit— love,  joy, 


160  THE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 

peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance — 
this  is  the  orthodoxy  which  brings  men  nearest  to  God.  You 
believe  it  as  well  as  I  do.  And  yet,  to-morrow,  when  you  get  into 
your  niche  again,  you  will  turn  round  and  defend  your  sect,  and 
attack  your  brethren. 

There  is  a  growing  consciousness  in  Christendom,  not  that  ordi- 
nances are  of  no  yalue,  but  that  they  are  subordinate ;  that  they 
are  relative  ;  that  they  must  be  tested  and  ranked  by  their  power  to 
do  something  more  than  make  externalities,  or  excogitations,  or 
creeds.  It  is  manhood  that  all  men  believe  in.  That  comes  from 
the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

No  fruit  ever  ripens  in  the  night,  nor  in  the  winter.  It  takes 
sunlight  and  warmth  to  make  sugar  in  fruit.  And  in  the  soul  of 
man  nature  never  ripens  spiritual  graces  :  it  is  God ;  and  that  is 
what  we  must  come  more  and  more  into  the  conception  of.  Man- 
hood is  the  true  church.  Every  true  man  is  in  the  chiirch  wherever 
he  is.  God  is  the  sun  that  ripens  manhood  in  man.  Every  yearning, 
every  aspiration,  every  feeling,  and  all  growth,  are  of  that  God  who 
is  drawing  us  toward  the  great  consummation  for  which  we  are  des- 
tined. 

Men  are  also  united  in  the  great  experiences  of  sorrow — in  the 
shadows  through  which  they  walk  in  their  endeavors  to  perfect 
holiness  in  the  fear  of  God.  We  must  look  upon  life  with  an 
eye  instructed  by  faith. 

I  have  stood  at  the  junction  of  Atlantic  and  Flatbush  Avenues 
about  where  Fifth  Avenue  comes  in,  and  seen  the  cavalcades  coming 
and  going — a  funeral  on  one  street  going  to  Greenwood,  and  on 
the  other  street  a  dozen  carriages  filled  with  people  bent  on  pleasure, 
going  to  Prospect  Park,  jolting  along,  all  mixed  up ;  and  funerals 
and  pleasure  parties  returning  the  same  way.  It  is  pretty  much 
so  all  through  the  city.  People  are  mixed  up.  Light  and  dark- 
ness, joy  and  sorrow,  are  over  against  each  other.  There  are 
tears  in  one  part  of  the  house,  and  there  is  joy  in  another  part. 
We  are  all  gathered  together  under  one  general  economy.  We 
are  all  open  to  bereavements.  The  storm  breaks  down  the  door 
of  one  man's  house.  Another  man's  house  does  not  have  its 
doors  broken  down  by  the  storm,  but  the  lightning  may  strike 
it.  Some  of  you  are  overthrown  by  your  relations  to  prop- 
erty. Some  of  you  are  brought  to  shame  and  sorrow  and  anguish 
through  your  relations  to  business.  Some  of  you  are  excruciated 
by  the  conduct  of  your  children.  Some  of  you  are  borne  down  by 
one  trouble,  and  some  by  another.  No  man  goes  unbaptized  in  the 
waters  of  affliction.     Where  the  Jordan  flows  is  just  above  the  Dead 


TEE  UmiY  OF  MEN.  161 

Sea,  whose  waters  sometimes  set  up  there,  and  are  very  brackish  ; 
and  the  waters  we  all  are  baptized  in  are  bitter  with  the  taste  of 
sorrow  and  trouble. 

When  men  do  wrong,  commit  sin,  in  life,  and  know  it,  they  feel 
guilty  and  remorseful ;  but  the  guilt  and  remorse  will  be  according 
to  the  fineness  of  the  nature  that  experiences  them.  One  man 
does  a  great  wrong,  and  apparently  suffers  but  little  or  not  at  all. 
Another  man  does  a  less  wrong,  and  suffers  night  and  day  in  con- 
sequence of  it.  And  for  the  comfort  of  those  to  whom  it  seems  as 
tliough  the  worse  a  man  is  the  less  he  suffers,  and  the  better  a  man 
is  the  more  he  suffers,  and  as  though  it  were  a  strange  administra- 
tion of  suffering  that  we  are  under,  I  say  this :  that  we  are  all 
suffering  according  to  our  constitution  and  nature ;  and  the  more 
severe  the  training,  the  sooner  the  perfected  nature  comes.  We  are 
rising  under  suffering.  We  are  stumbling  and  getting  up  again. 
We  are  sighing  and  breaking  out  into  joy.  We  are  cast  down  but 
not  destroyed.  In  our  experience  there  is  darkness  and  light ;  there 
is  night  and  morning;  there  is  midnight  gloom  and  noontide 
brightness ;  there  is  disappointment  and  transport.  There  are  all 
sorts  of  experiences  strangely  commingled  in  our  lives.  And  we 
are  all  united  in  these  experiences.  For  they  are  universal.  But 
we  are  to  look  on  beyond  the  time-line.  We  are  to  rise  into  the 
life  above.  We  are  all  of  us,  thank  God,  all  of  us,  tending  toward 
higher  conditions — toward  a  better  life.     That  is  the  direction. 

I  am  thankful  to  God  that  there  is  not  a  sect  in  Christendom,  of 
which  I  have  any  knowledge,  that  I  do  not  believe  is  tending  toward 
the  zenith  of  final  holiness.  It  makes  the  feeling  of  brotherhood 
very  strong  in  me.  When  I  began  my  ministry,  I  began  as  a  fighter. 
I  have  learned  to  lay  down  (except  occasionally !)  the  weajions  of 
my  warfare  in  these  matters,  and  I  feel  more  compassion,  more  sor- 
row, more  sympathy,  and  more  sincere  and  cordial  rejoicing  in  the 
progress  of  all  the  different  sects  which  belong  to  Christendom.  It 
might  not  do  for  me  to  say  what  I  think  of  those  who  do  not 
belong  to  Christendom,  but  in  respect  to  all  those  who  are  within 
the  great  cincture  of  Christ  I  have  this  feeling :  that  according  to 
their  various  methods  they  are  all  traveling  one  road  toward  a  higher 
and  better  life  in  the  world  to  come.  1*  shall  meet  them  there,  and 
see  them  there,  and  I  cannot  afford  to  despise  one  of  them.  I  should 
not  know  who  it  was  that  I  was  despising  if  I  spoke  a  word  against 
any  one  whose  soul  was  calling  out  to  Christ.  Christ  taught  him 
to  call  him  by  name  ;  and  however  rude  his  language  I  respect  him. 
When  the  little  child  of  the  most  vulgar  peasant  says  to  her,  "  Ma," 
no  matter  how  shrill  the  voice  or  homely  the  face  of  the  creature 


162  THE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 

that  speaks,  I  dare  not  treat  it  with  contempt.  The  yoice  eyen  of 
a  child  uttering  words  of  love  or  distress  should  command  our 
reverence.  And  the  voice  of  any  soul  crying  out  toward  God,  and 
longing  for  him,  whether  through  doctrines,  throiigh  ordinances 
or  even  through  superstitions — this,  everywhere,  I  have  learned  more 
and  more  to  think  of,  to  feel  for,  and  to  rejoice  over.  It  is  a  matter  of 
rejoicing  to  me  that  the  union  of  the  outside,  which  we  see,  is  be- 
ginning to  measure  the  real  unity  among  those  who  are  seeking  the 
heavenly  land. 

All  of  us  are  united,  likewise,  in  another  way  which  I  rejoice 
in.  We  are  under  angelic  convoy.  The  angels  may  be  afar  oif,  but 
they  are  guiding  us.  I  wish  my  children  that  have  gone  to  heaven 
would  sjjeak  to  me  sometimes;  but  they  will  not.  I  wish  they  would 
at  least  let  me  see  the  soft  gleam  of  their  wings  as  they  disappear; 
but  they  will  not.  How  many  hours  have  I  sat  looking  up,  and  up, 
and  up  into  the  starry  depths,  until  I  almost  thought  I  saAV  the  out- 
line figures  of  real  invisible  spirits  coming  to  me  !  But  they  came 
not.  HoAv  many  times  when  the  summer  made  the  air  tremulous 
over  field  or  hill,  have  I,  in  that  strange,  indescribable  mood  which 
summer  brings  to  the  soul,  longed  to  see,  in  the  morning,  coming 
from  the  east  as  definite  as  the  sun,  something  to  limn  to  me  the 
aspect  and  form  of  God  !  But  it  did  not  come.  Though  my  soul 
cries  out  for  God,  my  spirit  finds  him  mostly  in  offices  of  kindness 
performed  toward  others.  God  comes  to  me  mostly  when  I  am  en- 
deavoring to  rescue  others  from  the  pit.  Sometimes  when  I  rise 
from  my  book  and  arguments  I  feel  as  though  doubt  sat  where  God 
should  sit.  Then  my  heart  is  bitter  within  me,  and  I  say,  "  0  God, 
why  dost  thou  hide  thyself  ?"  I  never  came  from  doing  the  work 
of  God,  humbling  myself,  giving  my  soul  to  ransom  other  souls 
from  the  path  of  suffering  ;  I  never  came  out  of  night  bringing 
with  me  others  that  were  benighted ;  I  never  did  that  which  would 
liken  me  to  the  attributes  of  God,  that  the  way  was  not  full  of  God 
to  me.  By  my  faith  and  experience  he  has  interpreted  himself  to 
me,  till  I  know  him  as  I  know  none  of  you. 

We  are  all  coming,  under  the  convoying  of  angels,  and  of  God 
himself,  to  that  Name  which  is  above  every  other  name,  and  which 
is  to  be  more  to  us  than  aTl  other  names.  When  all  angels  shall 
have  sung,  when  all  choirs  shall  have  chanted,  when  all  things,  con- 
spiring in  harmonies,  shall  have  made  heaven  full  of  music,  if  there 
shall  come  a  pause,  and  there  shall  be  called  out  the  one  name 
Jesus,  the  music  of  that  song  eternal  will  be  sweeter  than  has  been 
all  the  singing  of  the  whole  host  of  heaven.  We  are  all  under  the 
loving  care  of  this  blessed  Jesus. 


THE  UNITY  OF  MEN.  163 

It  seems  to  you  as  though  you  were  growing  old,  as  though  you 
were  becoming  aged  ;  but  you  arc  not  :  you  are  going  down  toward 
youth.  It  seems  to  you  as  though  with  your  declining  years  and 
waning  strength  you  were  coming  nearer  to  a  condition  of  limita- 
tion and  circumscription  ;  but  as  the  shell  is  broken  that  the  eagle 
may  come  forth  and  be  free,  so  your  outward  tabernacle  is  being 
taken  doAvn  that  you  may  enjoy  a  larger  freedom.  It  seems  to  you 
as  though  you  were  given  over  to  weakness  and  infirmity  ;  but 
what  you  call  weakness  and  infirmity  is  but  the  taking  away  the 
pegs  and  cutting  the  cords  that  this  earthly  habitation  may  be  re- 
moved, and  that  you  may  have  perfect  liberty.  It  seems  to  you  as 
though  you  were  alone  ;  but  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand 
sainted  beings  God  sends  from  heaven  that  they  may  be  watchers 
and  convoys  for  you. 

Christian  brethren — you  that  have  just  come  into  our  midst — 
do  not  think  that  you  have  ended  the  catalogue  of  your  felici- 
ties because  you  have  joined  yourselves  to  those  who  are  to  teach 
you — because  you  are  received  into  the  fellowship  and  communion 
of  this  visible  church.  These  are  blessed  things;  but  they  are  hardly 
the  punctuations  of  that  blessedness  which  God  will  minister  to 
you  when  you  enter  the  spiritual  realm.  You  may  call  yourselves 
his  sons.  You  may  call  yourselves  heirs  with  Jesus  Christ.  You 
are  on  the  road,  not  that  your  feet  tread,  but  that  your  soul  is 
treading.  You  are  a  citizen  with  the  whole  blessed  company  in  the 
heavenly  land.  Let  tears  flow,  let  cares  weigh,  let  sorrows  pierce, 
let  night  come,  let  the  soul  dwell  in  darkness,  if  that  be  best ;  but 
remember  that  you  are  called  "  to  the  general  assembly  and  church 
of  the  first  born,  which  are  written  in  heaven." 

Yours  is  a  very  noble  inheritance.  You  have  a  relationship  to 
every  church  under  heaven.  You  have  a  relationship  tP  all  that 
goes  on  between  the  earthly  church  and  the  heavenly  church.  All 
of  God's  people  belong  to  you.  All  the  forces  which,  under  God's 
direction,  arc  operating  in  this  world,  are  sweeping  you  on  toward 
your  celestial  abode.  As  the  mariner  who  comes  up  the  Gulf  Stream 
and  is  carried  by  the  tide,  and  swept  by  the  wind,  rejoices  that 
everything  in  the  ship  is  being  carried — even  the  smallest  child 
among  the  crew  as  well  as  the  captain  himself — so  it  is  a  matter  for 
rejoicing  that  the  poorest  and  least  of  us  are  4jeing  swept  on  in 
the  current  of  the  Gulf  Stream  of  divine  love  and  mercy. 

Heaven  is  yours.  It  is  your  home.  Some  of  you  that  have  come 
among  us  to-day  have  no  earthly  home.  Some  of  you  have  no  father 
and  mother  on  earth.  Some  of  you  are  children  of  sorrow,  and 
have  walked  to  your  present  experience  through  much  tribulation. 


164  THE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 

But  there  is  rest  just  above  you.  Just  beyond  the  storm  there  is 
the  calm.  You  are  very  near  to  the  end  of  your  journey.  There- 
fore go  forward,  and  rejoice  as  you  go.  Do  not  waver  ;  or,  if  you  do 
waver,  do  not  despair.  If  you  stumble  and  fall,  God  will  pick  you 
up.  If  you  sin,  God  will  forgive  you.  If  you  sin  till  not  one  on 
earth  forgives  you,  Christ  will  remember  you.  His  love  is  more 
'  than  a  mother's  love.  The  height  and  depth  and  length  and  breadth 
of  it  pass  understanding.  To  that  infinite  love  I  commend  you. 
Living  or  dying,  ye  are  the  Lord's. 

"We  shall  now  proceed  to  administer  the  Lord's  Supper  ;  and  we 
invite  to  remain  and  partake  of  this  ordinance  with  us,  all  those 
who  love  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  all  who  are  seeking  to  live  a  life 
of  love  and  of  faith  in  Christ ;  all  who  aspire  to  rise  above  the 
dominion  of  their  sin,  and  are  in  earnest  to  reach  their  true  man- 
hood in  Christ  Jesus.  We  invite  all  such,  whether  they  are  mem- 
bers of  any  visible  church  or  not,  because  they  are  members  of 
Christ's  household  of  faith,  and  are  inwardly  Christ's.  I  do  not 
own  that  table  ;  this  church  does  not  own  it  :  it  is  spread  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  ;  and  any  soul  that  needs  Christ,  and  knows  it, 
and  is  willing  to  accept  Christ's  mediation  and  love,  has  a  right  to 
help  himself  from  his  own  Master's  table.  Come,  and  come  freely 
and  rejoicingly. 


TEE  UNITY  OF  MEN.  165 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE   SERMON.  * 

O  Lord,  thou  art  ascended  up  into  the  heavens ;  and  yet,  where  is  not 
thy  Spirit?  and  where  is  not  thy  power  ?  and  where  are  not  thy  wisdom  and 
thy  goodness?  Thou  art  working  through  fear.  In  the  invisible  realm  thy 
power  goes  forth.  We  know  not  what  is  the  fruitfuluess  of  thy  nature 
everywhere.  But  to  us,  afar  off  from  this  earth,  thou  art  making  manifesta- 
tions of  thyself.  Not  alone  by  the  outward  world,  but  through  our  owu 
souis,  thou  art  continually  making  thyself  known,  creating  iu  us  more  ex- 
alted ideas  of  life  and  of  manhood.  And  from  our  own  limited  sphere  we 
derive  higher  conceptions  of  what  thy  nature  must  be.  How  it  must  trans- 
cend iu  all  excellences  anything  that  we  have  ever  seen  among  men  !  What 
must  be  the  scope,  the  riches,  and  the  glory  of  our  inheritance  iu  thee ! 

We  rejoice  that  thy  word  which  has  been  sounding  for  so  many  ages 
is  not  yet  without  power.  We  thank  thee  that  the  tidings  of  salvation 
through  Jesus  Christ  are  still  awaking  gladness  in  many  and  many  a  heart. 
We  thank  thee  that  there  are  so  many  who  are  drawn  toward  him ;  that 
there  are  so  many  who  seek  to  live  by  faith  of  the  invisible;  that  tiaere  are 
so  many  who  are  endeavoring  to  conseurate  all  their  powers  to  the  service 
of  the  Lord  God  in  loving  fidelity. 

We  praj'  for  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  these  thy  servants  who  have 
joined  themselves  with  us,  and  who  are  to  be  a  part  of  this  pilgrim  band  in 
days  to  come.  O  Lord,  grant  that  this  hour,  so  full  of  brightness,  so  full  of 
cheer,  and  so  full  of  comforting  associations,  may  abide  in  their  memory  as 
a  blessing  all  the  days  of  their  lives.  And  if,  when  they  are  scattered,  they 
shall  find  in  their  way  poverty  and  suffering  and  temptation;  if  they  shall 
be  left  lonely  and  friendless;  if  they  shall  find  themselves  seemingly  the 
sport  of  time  and  chance,  may  there  still  be  in  their  souls  this  invisible  bond 
of  faith  that  shall  unite  them  to  us,  and  unite  them  with  us  to  thee.  May 
they  never  forget  the  Throne  of  love.  May  they  never  forget  the  Heart  of 
love.  May  they  never  forget  that  Voice  whose  call  they  have  heard — His 
voice  whose  name  now  rests  upon  them. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  guard  them  all  from  the  dangers  of  prosperity, 
so  that^they  may  not  by  it  be  seduced  to  self-indulgence,  to  worldliness, 
to  selfishness.  Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  thy  blessing  may  rest  upon  them, 
and  that  they  may  be  sanctified  therein.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  keep 
them,  at  home  and  abroad,  in  the  house  of  God  or  in  their  own  dwelUngs, 
in  mid-life  and  in  old  age. 

Grant  tliat  not  one  of  this  blessed  band  may  drop  out;  that  not  one  link 
of  the  chain  may  be  broken ;  that  every  one  of  them  may  inherit  eternal 
life. 

We  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  those  who  are  young,  and  who 
have  had  but  little  experience  in  life,  may  have  thy  guidance,  by  which 
they  shall  grow  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  And  we 
pray  that  all  the  households  from  which  these  have  come  may  experience, 
through  them,  a  blessing  of  the  Lord.  May  that  Spirit  which  Ave  trust  rests 
upon  their  hearts  be  diffused  as  a  sweet  fragrance  wherever  they  go.  May 
they  seek  to  win  men  ])y  their  gentleness,  and  by  their  meekness,  and  by 
tlieir  humility.  May  selfishness  and  pride  be  put  away  from  them.  Llay 
they  walk  in  all  helpfulness,  in  all  sweetness  of  love,  in  all  obligingness  of 
disposition.  May  men  see  that  day  by  day  they  draw  their  strength  from  the 


'Immediately  following  the  reception  of  members  Into  the  ehsrch. 


166  THE  UNITY  OF  MEN. 

invisible.  May  they  abound  in  prayer.  May  the  power  of  God's  Spirit 
rest  upon  them.  May  they  be  thy  faithful  witnesses  everywhere.  May 
they,  upheld  by  thee,  be  able  to  overcome  that  which  is  greater  and  mightier 
than  they  are.  May  they  know  how  to  clothe  themselves  with  the  invisi- 
ble armor  of  faith,  and  every  one  of  them  fight  the  battle  of  the  Lord  man- 
fully.   And  having  done  all,  may  they  stand  invincible  in  soul. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  all  those  who  have  labored  to  bring 
these  dear  creatures  to  thee,  that  they  may  stand  around  about  thy 
throne  among  the  bands  of  the  blessed.  How  many  tears  have  been 
shed !  How  many  prayers  have  been  offered !  How  many  persuasions  have 
been  spoken !  What  watching  and  what  following  there  have  been !  What 
long  care  of  love  has  ministered  to  some  of  them !  They  had  been  left  to 
tbe  world;  they  were  without  friends  in  Christ  Jesus;  and  it  is  to  the 
fidelity  of  those  who  were  not  mothers  nor  fathers  to  them,  but  who  have 
proved  better  than  father  or  mother,  that  they  are  rescued  from  the  world. 
It  is  through  their  labor  that  they  have  come  into  the  kingdom  of  the  dear 
Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  repay  a 
hundred-fold  those  who  have  been  benefactors  to  these  thy  scattered  ones, 
for  their  acts  and  thoughts  of  mercy  toward  them. 

And  wilt  thou,  we  beseech  of  thee,  encourage  all  those  who  go  out  tc 
labor  in  schools,  and  in  the  street,  and  among  the  poor  and  sick  and  im- 
prisoned. Everywhere  may  they  be  faithful  to  the  cause  of  their 
Redeemer,  and  bear  his  very  spirit  with  them.  May  they  see  that  what 
they  sow  in  tears  shall  come  forth  in  joy.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  more  and 
more  give  to  every  one  of  thy  people  enterprise  in  the  service  of  the 
Lord. 

Build  up,  we  pray  thee,  thy  churches  everywhere.  For  all  the  manifesta- 
tions of  thy  grace  and  kindness  which  thou  hast  shown  them,  we  thank 
thee.  We  pray  for  those  whose  pastors  are  absent  from  them.  May  they 
all  be  kept  safely  until  their  pastors  return.  May  the  life  and  health  of 
those  who  are  going  abroad  or  returning  hither  across  the  sea  be  preserved, 
and  be  precious  in  thy  sight. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  pleased  to  remember  the  Convention  which 
is  assembled  in  our  midst  to  discuss  those  things  which  concern  the  interests 
of  thy  kingdom.  Bless  its  members.  Give  them  wisdom.  In  their  deliberations 
may  there  be  such  sweetness  of  Christ's  Spirit,  and  such  true  love  fraternal, 
that  all  men  shall  see  that  they  differ  from  those  who  are  around  about 
them.  May  their  churches  be  kept  in  their  absence.  And  we  pray  that  all 
the  interests  of  that  great  and  honored  and  blessed  Zion  may  come  up  be- 
fore thee,  and  be  abundantly  blessed. 

We  pray  for  thy  churches  of  every  name.  We  pray  for  the  universal 
church.  We  pray  that  we  may  be  so  joined  to  it  in  spirit  that  not  death 
itself  can  separate  us  from  the  cloud  of  witnesses ;  from  the  great  army  of 
the  blessed ;  from  the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first-born. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.    Amen. 


X. 

Apostolic  Christianity. 


INVOCATION. 

Accept  our  thanks  and  our  desires,  this  morning,  not  according  to  the 
goodness  that  is  in  us,  our  Father,  but  according  to  the  mercy  which  is  in 
thyself.  Out  of  thine  own  heart  take  the  measure  of  bounty  with  wliich  we 
are  to  be  blessed  this  day.  Think  as  a  father  thinks ;  think  as  a  Father  in  heaven 
thinks ;  think  as  God  over  all,  blessed,  and  blessing  forever,  must  think,  of 
those  who  are  infinitely  needy  and  weak  and  low  and  helpless.  For  all  that 
is  within  us  pants  after  thee  to-day.  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water- 
brook,  so  our  souls  pant  for  thee,  O  Lord  our  God.  Inspire  us,  then,  by  thine 
own  Spirit.  Breathe  understanding  into  us.  Kindle  and  direct  the  flame  of 
love  and  devotion.  Accept  the  service  of  song,  and  our  communion  in 
prayer,  and  our  fellowship  one  with  another,  and  our  endeavors  after  know- 
ledge. And  may  all  things  this  day,  both  in  the  sanctuary  and  in  our 
homes,  be  of  God,  and  unto  God,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Redeemer. 
Amen. 
10. 


APOSTOLIC  CHRISTIANITY. 


''  Grace  and  peace  be  multiplied  unto  you  through  the  knowledge  of  God, 
ajvii  of  Jesus  our  Lord,  according  as  his  divine  power  hath  given  unto  us  all 
things  that  pertain  unto  life  and  godliness,  through  the  knowledge  of  him 
that  hath  called  us  to  glory  and  virtue :  whereby  are  given  unto  us  exceed- 
ing great  and  precious  promises ;  that  by  these  ye  might  be  partakers  of 
the  divine  nature,  having  escaped  the  corruption  that  is  in  the  world 
through  lust.  And  besides  this,  giving  all  diligence,  add  to  your  faith  vir- 
tue; and  to  virtue,  knowledge;  and  to  knowledge,  temperance;  and  to 
temf)erance,  patience;  and  to  patience,  godliness;  and  to  godliness, 
brotherly  kindness;  and  to  brotherly  kindness,  charity.  For  if  these 
things  be  in  you  and  abound,  they  make  you  that  ye  shall  neither  be  barren 
nor  unfruitful  in  ttie  knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  But  he  that 
lac'iifcth  these  things  is  blind,  and  cannot  see  afar  off,  and  hath  forgotten 
that  he  was  purged  from  his  old  sins.  Wherefore  the  rather,  brethren,  give 
diligence  to  make  your  calling  and  election  sure:  for  if  ye  do  these  things, 
yo  shall  never  fall :  for  so  an  entrance  shall  be  ministered  unto  you  abun- 
dantly into  the  everlasting  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ."— 2.  Pet.  I.  2-11. 


Men  are  very  fond  .of  looking  at  the  divine  government  from 
that  side  where  it  can  be  the  least  seen,  the  least  known,  and  where 
they  are  most  subject  to  the  errors  of  their  own  fluctuating  imag- 
inations, and  to  the  obscurities  of  philosophy,  falsely  so  called.  It 
is  far  better,  wherever  we  can,  to  look  at  the  great  truths  of  the 
divine  moral  government,  at  the  mystery  of  God's  dealing  Avith  men 
in  this  world,  from  the  human  side.  Although  there  are  obscuri- 
ties, still  the  chances  are  better,  and  the  instruction  is  more  fre- 
quent, more  clear,  more  comprehensible.  And  this  is  what  is  done 
in  the  passage  that  I  have  selected  this  morning.  It  is,  in  brief, 
the  inspired  disclosure  of  the  purposes  of  God  in  respect  to  men. 
What  it  is  tba.t  the  grace  of  God  is  attempting  to  do  with  those  who 
are  called  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  is  set  forth.  "We  are  called  of 
God.  The  voice  that  we  hear  is,  therefore,  no  voice  of  nature,  as 
something  exterior  to  God.  If  man  grows  a  certain  way  up,  he 
grows  according  to  that  call  of  God  which  takes  place  through 
physical  or  material  law,  and  addresses  itself  to  his  material  or 

Sunday  Morning,  May  12,  1872.    Lesson  :  1   Pet.  1.  2-16.    Hymns  (Plymouth  Collec- 
tion): Nos.  286, 655, 1251. 


170  APOSTOLIC   CEBISTIANITY. 

physical  being.     But  there  comes'  a  point  of  time  in  whicti  that 

which  is  the  true  manhood  has  a  higher  call.    There  is  an  in  Juence 

that  is  not  exerted  on  a  man  by  light  or  electricity,  or  by  auy  of  the 

curious  phenomena  in  nature.     There  is  a  call  that  proceeds  from 

God  himself. 

"According  as  his  divine  power  hath  given  unto  us  all  things  that 
pertnin  unto  life  and  godliness,  through  the  knowledge  ol  him  that  hath 
called  us  to  glory  and  virtue." 

In  our  version,  it  is  "  to  glory  and  virtue,"  but  in  the  original  it 

is  "  by  glory  and  virtue,"  as  if  the  call  was  not  by  the  nature  ol 

man,  but  by  the  nature  of  God.     By  his  own  being,  by  the  glorious 

and  virtuous  power  of  his  own  spirit,  he  calls  us  up  out  of  our 

lower  life — out  of  that  nature  of  ours  which  is  physical. 

"Whereby  are  given  unto  us  exceeding  great  and  precious  promises  : 
that  by  these  [promises  which  are  yea  and  amen ;  which  are  never  broken  ; 
which  are  always  fulfilled— for  by  promise  we  understand  fulfillment],  ye 
might  be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  having  o  soaped  the  corruption  that 
is  in  the  world  through  lust  [through  the  workings  of  the  appetites  and 
passions  which  belong  t  ^  this  physical  frame,  and  which  minister  to  being, 
to  growth,  and  which  give  way,  or  are  to  give  way,  to  the  development  of  a 
higher  life— which  higher  life  is  true  Christian  manhood]." 

To  that  we  are  called  by  all  the  promises  of  God  througli  Christ 
Jesus,  that  at  last  we  may  accomplish  our  destiny  in  becoming  par- 
takers of  the  divine  nature.  In  what  conditions  and  to  what  extent 
it  is  to  take  place,  what  is  the  limit  of  being,  what  is  to  be  our 
equator,  no  one  knows.  It  is  only  in  this  general  viigue  way  re- 
vealed that  the  destiny  of  the  human  soul  is  to  come  into  the  like- 
ness and  participation  of  the  divine  nature.  , 

The  apostle  goes  on  to  say, 

"  On  account  of  this,  [besides  this,  it  is  in  our  version :  by  reason  of  this, 
or  on  account  of  this,  is  the  meaning  of  the  origintil]  giving  all  diligence." 

You  are  called.  The  call  is  one  which  is  to  be  answered.  There 
is  to  be  working  together  of  the  inspiration  of  the  divine  Spirit  and 
human  endeavor  according  to  that  other  passage,  "  Work  out  your 
own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling;  for  it  is  God  wliich  Avork- 
eth  in  you. 

"  On  account  of  this,  giving  all  diligence,  add  to  your  faith  virtue." 

What  is  faith?  Superseusuousness.  Well,  what  is  supersen- 
suousness?  It  is  all  that  truth  which  exists  beyond  the  discern- 
ment of  the  senses.  Whatever  the  ear  can  hear,  or  the  eye  can  see, 
or  the  nose  can  smell,  or  the  tongue  can  taste,  or  the  hand  can 
handle — that  faith  has  nothing  to  do  with.  That  belongs  to  the 
senses.  There  is  a  large  range  of  truth  there.  But  above  this  line — 
that  is,  beyond  the  realm  of  physical  science— there  is  also  a  large 


APOSTOLIC  CEBISTIANITT.  171 

amount  of  truth,  both  of  existence,  and  of  law,  and  of  various  at- 
tributes; and  faith  is  that  moral  intuition,  that  spiritual  insight, 
that  sense  of  the  soul,  by  which  we  discern  the  great  invisible 
world,  and  all  its  realities. 

"  Faith  is  tlie  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not 
seen." 

In  its  most  general,  in  its  generic  definition,  faith  is  the  mind's 
perception  of  tlie  great  interior  realm — of  that  substantial  truth 
which  is  above  the  senses,  and  which  therefore  cannot  be  discerned 
by  them. 

A  Christian  man  is  one  who  lives  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible. 
He  lives  by  faith — by  eyes  that  are  not  on  the  outside — by  soul-eyes 
— by  moral  intuitions. 

Now  the  apostle  says,  "  Add  to  that  faith  virtue."  What  he 
meant  by  the  word  virtue  was  not  what  we  mean  by  that  word. 
Our  understanding  of  the  word  virtue  usually  is  that  it  signifies  the 
opposite  of  vice — purity ;  but  in  the  apostolic  mind  the  idea  was 
that  to  this  faith,  which  is  the  mind's  mode  of  dealing  with  invisi- 
ble things,  should  be  added,  I  will  not  say  work,  but  rather  con- 
duct, practicalness,  development.  The  word  virtue,  according  to  its 
old  meaning,  carried  the  implication  that  what^a  man  wrouglit  out 
was  right  and  noble ;  but  its  principal  idea  was  practicalness.  It 
was  substantially  righteousness.  So  the  apostle  says,  "Add  to  this 
vision-seeing  tendency  of  yours,  which  may  etherialize  itself  and  go 
ofi"  in  a  cloudy  dream — add  to  this  the  practice  of  a  wise  and  right- 
eous kind.  Add  to  your  faith  virtue,  in  the  old  Roman  sense — true 
manhood." 

By  the  way,  I  have  jumped  a  thought.  It  does  not  say  Add  to, 
in  the  original ;  it  says,  Provide,  or  develop,  in.  It  is  the  preposi- 
tion in  and  not  the  preposition  to,  that  is  employed.  It  is  as  if  he 
had  had  in  his  mind  the  thought  of  a  plant,  and  had  said,  "  Now, 
let  the  first  joint  be  faith ;  and  out  of  that  develop  another  joint, 
and  let  that  be  virtue ;  and  then,  in  your  virtue — that  is,  out  of 
your  virtue — develop  knowledge ;  and  out  of  your  knowledge 
develop  temperance  ;  and  out  of  your  temperance  develop  patience  ; 
and  out  of  your  patience,  opening  and  unfolding,  develop  godliness ; 
and  so  on,  showing  the  idea  of  the  successive  evolution  of  one  out 
of  another.  According  to  our  version,  it  is  simply  as  though  ducat 
were  to  be  thrown  upon  ducat,  and  there  were  to  be  an  accumula- 
tion in  the  sense  of  juxtaposition  ;  but  the  idea  which  is  conveyed 
by  the  original  is  that  of  unfolding  one  grace  out  of  another,  or 
adding  grace  to  grace  by  extension  and  evolution. 

Says  the  apostle,  "  Add  to  your  faith,  or  in  your  faith,  virtue ;  in 


172  APOSTOLIC  CEEISTIANITT. 

other  words,  develop  out  of  your  faith  virtue — that  is,  practical  god- 
liness ;  and  in  your  virtue  or  from  out  of  your  virtue,  develop  knowl- 
edge." 

By  this  is  not  meant,  evidently,  that  knowledge  which  we  gather 
by  uar  senses — scientific  knowledge,  ideas,  facts  ;  but  a  higher 
Kuowfewige — that  subtle  intuition  of  truth  which  men  have  who  live 
high  and  noble  lives.  A  man  of  great  conscience  has  a  sense,  a 
knowledge,  of  principle  which  is  higher  thtiu  any  law  or  custom  can 
point  out.  A  man  who  cultivates  his  taste  has  a  finer  sense  and 
knowledge  of  beauty  than  a  man  who  does  no  .  A  man  who  dwells 
largely  in  figures  and  mathematics  has  a  sense  vf  numbers  and  pro- 
portions which  does  not  belong  to  other  mtai.  The  knowledge 
which  is  spoken  of  here  is  that  knowledge  which  is  in  the  nature 
of  moral  intuition. 

That  which  is  meant  by  temperance  is  not  that  almost  local  sig- 
nification of  the  term  which  we  are  accustomed  to  give  it.  By  tem- 
perance is  meant  self-government.  Originally  that  word  signified 
moderation,  not  only  in  eating  and  drinking,  but  in  everything. 
Now,  it  signifies,  technically,  restraint  from  drinking  alone;  but 
originally  it  signified  restraint  of  every  kind,  self-government  of 
every  kind ;  and  it  may  better  be  rendered  self-government  or  self- 
restraint. 

And  in  temperance,  or  from  it,  develop  patience — endurance — 
the  spirit  of  bold,  courageous,  quiet  waiting,  so  that  you  can  go  as 
an  arrow  goes  shot  out  of  a  bow,  or  hang  as  an  arrow  hangs  in  the 
quiver  through  unnumbered  days,  and  be  an  arrow  still. 

It  is  a  great  and  glorious  thing  for  a  man  to  have  vigor,  power, 
accomplishing  energy ;  and  it  is  equally  great  and  glorious,  and  it 
is  harder,  for  a  man  who  has  energy  and  vigor  and  power  to  have 
also  restfulness  and  endurance  and  waiting  ability.  No  man  can 
beat  down  time  and  events ;  but  many  a  man  is  too  much  for  time 
and  events,  by  reason  of  patient  waiting. 

"Add  to  knowledge,  temperance;  to  temperance,  patience ;  and  to  pa- 
tience, godliness." 

That  is,  let  your  patience  be  not  stoical.  Let  it  not  be  stubborn, 
oV^^inate,  sulky.     Let  it  be  the  waiting  and  endurance  of  a  man  Avho 

-eves  that  God  reigns,  and  that  all  the  afiairs  of  the  universe  are 
,xi  his  hands,  and  shall  work  toward  good.  Let  it  be  that  patience 
which  comes  from  godliness. 

"  And  to  godliness,  brotherly  kindness." 

That  is,  let  there  be  in  your  godliness  a  warm  sympathy  and 
afi'ection,  not  only  for  yourself,  but  for  your  family ;  for  all  your 
near  neighbors ;  for  all  your  neighbors  that  are  more  remote;  for 


APOSTOLIC  CEBISTIANITT.  173 

all  your  townspeople ;  for  your  church ;  for  other  churches ;  for  un- 
church folks  ;  for  all  the  world. 

"  And  to  brotherly  kindness,  charity." 

That  is  the  universal  form  of  love.  Local  affection  and  universal 
affection — add  these. 

"  For  if  these  things  be  iu  you,  and  abound,  they  make  you  that  ye  shall 
neither  be  barren  [idle  or  ungrowing]  nor  unfruitful  in  the  knowledge  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

That  is,  we  gain  a  knowledge  of  Christ  by  becoming  like  him — 
not  by  studying,  not  by  thinking,  not  by  meditation,  except  in  an 
indirect  way;  but  by  imitating  him.  He  who  puts  his  mind  in  the 
attitude  of  the  divine  mind,  and  gathers  within  himself  the  virtues 
which  constitute  the  divine  nature,  and  holds  them  in  supreme  ac- 
tivity or  supreme  rest,  as  the  case  may  be — he,  out  of  his  experi- 
ence, shall  neither  be  idle  nor  unfruitful  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  So,  we  learn  of  Christ  here  that  new  Gospel 
which  the  Spirit  is  continually  interpreting  in  the  heart  of  every- 
one who  lives  according  to  the  mind  and  tlie  will  of  God. 

Here,  then,  is  the  apostle's  conception  of  a  Christian  man's  char- 
acter, development  and  destiny;  and  I  remark: 

L  This  ideal  destiny  of  man  is  one  that  shall  lead  him  into  the 
likeness,  into  tlie  sympathy,  and  into  the  participation  of  the  divine 
nature. 

John  tells  us  that  we  are  sons  of  God ;  but  what  that  means  he 
did  not  know,  and  nobody  has  found  out.  The  knowledge  of  what 
we  shall  be  is  reserved  until  we  shall  have  a  better  imderstanding 
than  we  can  have  in  this  state  of  being. 

Men  are  striving  to  extricate  tliemselves  from  environment.  But 
we  know  little  with  certainty.  It  is  hard  to  draw  the  superior  down 
within  the  grasp  of  the  inferior.  We  cannot  take  in,  with  our  un- 
derstanding, the  truths  of  the  higher  sphere.  The  reason  why  we 
know  so  little  of  the  divine  nature  is,  that  we  have  so  little  in  our- 
selves that  interprets  it  to  us.  We  have  a  few  hints  and  dim  an- 
alogies of  the  other  life ;  but  it  is  evident  that  we  are  unfolding  and 
rising  toward  something  higher.  We  are  tending  away  from  the 
point  at  which  we  began.  We  are  not  simply  lengthening  the  chain 
which  links  us  to  the  future,  but  we  are  evidently  carrying  up  a 
nature  and  a  character  by  successive  steps  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
condition.  We  are  building  a  structure  of  precious  stones;  and 
the  work  will  be  continued  until  the  top-stone  is  laid.  Wc  be- 
gin our  characters  at  the  point  of  selfishness :  wc  ai'e  to  end  them 
at  the  point  of  disinterested  benevolence.  We  begin  in  the  realm 
of  animalism:  we  are  to  come  to  true  manhood  by  that  path  which 


174  APOSTOLIC  CHRISTIANITY, 

leads  us  in  the  direction  of  the  divine  nature  and  of  divine  excel- 
lence. No  man  has  reached  his  own  proper  self  until  he  has  in  him 
the  recognition  of  all  that  is  around  about  him.  As  no  mother  is  a 
full  mother  who  has  not  in  her  heart  the  sense  of  her  household ; 
as  her  mother  nature  is  that  nature  which  includes  in  its  wise  gov- 
ernment all  her  children;  so  the  time  is  to  be  when  a  man  will 
come  to  himself,  not  by  what  he  has,  biit  by  what  he  is — by  his 
sympatliy  with  others,  when  selfishness  shall  be  gone,  and  he  shall 
be  like  God,  and  shall  have  touched  that  large  sphere  of  benevolence 
which  shall  make  him  recognize  in  every  other  man  a  brother. 
There  are  dim  intimations  of  man's  experience  by  Avhich  he  devel- 
ops his  way  from  the  physical  into  the  spiritual. 

The  Bible  says  that  we  are  growing  toward  the  divine  nature. 
Men  may  scoff  at  it,  or  they  may  blindly  rejoice  in  it.  I  have 
groped  to  see  if  there  are  not  at  least  some  traces  along  the  line  of 
this  march,  and  I  think  I  see  some.  I  observe,  for  instance,  in  the 
progress  of  the  lower  animal  in  man  up  toward  the  higher — in 
this  progress  from  mere  physicalness  toward  intelligence — that 
when  it  reaches  the  human  race,  the  difference  between  unde- 
veloped men  and  men  who  are  developed,  is,  the  power  to 
discern,  the  invisible.  That  is,  men  whose  forces  are  muscular 
are  inferior  to  men  whose  forces  are  mental.  When  we  come  to 
judge  between  one  and  another  of  the  higher  classes  of  civilized 
life,  it  is  observable  that  the  development  of  those  men  who 
have  the  most  power  of  working  in  a  vacuum,  if  I  may  so  say, 
are  men  who  have  the  largest  spiritual  developments — men  who 
have  developed  away  from  the  physical.  The  line  of  dignity  and 
refinement  and  earthly  immortality  does  not  run  from  the  ineffable 
and  spiritual  toward  the  coarse  and  physical,  but  from  the  coarse 
and  physical  toward  the  spiritual  and  ineffable.  So  that,  looking 
at  it  as  a  scientific  fact,  as  men  grow  in  life  the  line  is  aAvay  from 
the  sensuous  toward  the  super-sensuous.  And  when  the  Apostle 
says  that  we  are  to  be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  I  say  that  the 
declaration  is  in  harmony  with  everything  that  I  see  going  on  in 
human  nature.  "We  rise  away  from  the  animal  toward  the  spiritual. 
We  advance  from  lower  manhood  to  higher  manhood.  The  line  is 
from  the  flesh  toward  the  spirit.  Therefore,  it  might  naturally  be 
expected  that  Christian  character  would  consummate  itself  in  the 
development  of  the  divine  nature.  That  is  the  highest  form  of 
spiritual  existence ;  and  when  the  Apostle  says  this  is  so,  I  am  pre- 
pared to  receive  it  and  to  rejoice  over  it. 

Many  able  scientists  are  investigating  the  road  through  which 
men  came   up  to  their  present  state;  but  it  is  of  little  conse- 


APOSTOLIC  GHBISTIANITY.  175 

quence  to  me  where  I  came  from.    It  is  of  a  great  deal  of  conse- 
quence, though,  where  I  am  going  to.    I  confess  to  some  curiosity 
as  to  my  origin  ;  and  I  am  far  from  saying  that  it  will  not  do  any 
good  to  trace  the  history  of  the  origin  of  the  human  race,  and  of 
everything  else  in  this  world.     I  regard  the  labors  of  Mr.  Darwin 
with  profound  interest ;   and  I  believe  the  world  owes  him  a  great 
debt  of  gratitude.     Although  I  may  not  accept  all  his  speculations, 
I  thank  him  for  any  facts,  or  any  deductions  from  facts,  which  have 
the  appearance  of  nearly  definite  truth.    I  do  not  participate  a 
particle  in  the  revulsion  aud  horror  which  some  feel  at  the  idea  that 
men  sprang  from  some  lower  form  of  existence.     Only  show  me 
that  J  am  clear  of  the  monkeys,  and  I  am  perfectly  willing  that  it 
should  be  true  that,  millions  of  years  ago,  my  ancestors  sprang  from 
them.     Let  there  be  diflFerence  enough,  and  distance  enough,  be- 
tween these  animals  and  me,  and  I  do  not  care  how  nearly  my  pro- 
genitors may  have  been  related  to  them.    I  would  as  lief  have 
sprung  from  a  monkey  as  from  some  men  that  I  know  of     If  I  look 
at  the  Patagonians,  or  the  Nootka  Sound  Indians,  or  the  Esqui- 
maux of  the  extreme  North,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  there  is 
much  to  choose,  as  to  parentage,  between  them  and  our  lower  ani- 
mals.   I  do  not  care  so  much  about  the  past,  as  I  do  about  the  fu- 
ture.   It  is  not  of  the  slightest  importance  that  I  should  trace  my 
early  associations  back  to  a  million  years  ago.    All  my  life  is  look- 
ing forward.    I  do  not  care  where  I  came  from:   I  want  to  know 
where  I  am  going.     If  I  am  going  with  the  animal,  earth  to  earth, 
that  is  sad  enough ;  but  if  I  am  under  that  attraction,  that  mighty 
Power,  which  calls  the  sun  to  make  summer  in  the  bosom  of  winter, 
which  all  the  winds  and  ice  cannot  resist,  which  generates  heat, 
and  which  out  of  heat  brings  life  universal,  infinite,  multitudinous, 
innumerable — if  I  am  under  that  Power,  and  it  is  still  drawing  you 
and  me  and  all  along  in  these  paths,  and  it  is  vouchsafed  that  we 
may  be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  then  that  is  something  that 
I  want  to  know,  and  something  that  I  want  to  feel. 

Now,  let  men  bore  in  the  rear  if  they  will:  it  is  for  me  to  look 
up  and  see  where  I  am  going.  For,  if  it  is  life  and  immortality, 
and  joy  ineffable  and  full  of  glory  there,  I  care  not  for  the  nest.  I 
care  not  for  the  skin  that  I  sloughed  off  ages  ago.  It  is  the  future 
that  I  care  for.  The  Christian  has  little  to  fear,  I  think,  if  it  will 
only  lead  on  to  this.  Not  to  deny  the  past,  nor  to  be  indifferent  to 
the  things  of  the  past,  it  is  not  probable  that  we  shall,  in  your  day 
or  mine,  find  out  everything  that  God  ever  thought  of  or  did.  It  is 
far  more  important  that  we  should  have  faith  in  the  future,  and 
know  which  way  to  fly  when  we  have  the  inspiration  of  emigration, 


176  APOSTOLIC  CEEI8TIANITY. 

than  that  we  should  know  what  took  place  myriads  of  ages  ago,  or 
what  was  the  condition  of  the  race  then. 

11.  No  man  was  ever  converted  to  Christianity  at  one  flash. 
No  man  ever  built  a  house  at  a  single  blow,  except  in  a  summer 
dream.  When  we  shut  our  eyes,  and  are  architects  of  reverie,  we 
can  build  worlds ;  we  can  multiply  the  dew-drop  till  it  swings  like 
a  crystal  sphere  in  the  realms  of  space.  We  can  create  cities,  we 
can  cause  millions  of  troops  to  spring  up,  we  can  populate  heaven 
and  earth,  by  reverie;  but  no  man  ever  did  anything  worth  doing — 
anything  complex,  large,  noble — by  reverie.  Many  suppose  that 
when  a  man  is  converted  by  the  power  of  God,  the  Spirit  of  God 
acts  as  the  lightning  acts — instantaneously.  But  suppose  it  does, 
did  you  ever  know  the  lightning  to  strike  a  mountain  and  instantly 
clear  away  all  the  dross  and  leave  nothing  but  pure  gold,  in  the 
shape  of  coin,  with  the  superscription  of  the  government  upon  it, 
and  waiting  for  men  to  use  it  ?  When  you  see  the  metal  in  a 
mountain  set  free  by  a  stroke  of  lightning,  you  may  expect  to  see  a 
man  set  free  from  the  cu-cumstances  of  life  by  conversion  with 
overpowering  suddenness. 

The  conversion  by  which  the  spirit  of  God  starts  a  man,  just 
starts  him — that  is  all.  It  turns  him  away  from  the  wrong  direc- 
tion. It  turns  him  toward  the  right  model.  It  gives  his  heart  an 
inspiration  for  things  higher,  and  then  says  to  him,  "  Work  out 
your  salvation."  He  is  salvable  in  whom  God  has  built  a  salvable 
character ;  and  the  work  of  building  such  a  character  is  complex, 
and  must  be  accomplished  by  successive  steps.  You  cannot  antici- 
pate the  various  stages  of  its  growth.  It  is  impossible  for  a  man  to 
begin  a  Christian  life  with  those  virtues  which  come"  only  through 
patient  waiting.  There  are  many  joys  which  are  experienced  at 
the  beginning  of  a  Christian  life.  There  are  many  songs  that  are 
sung  then ;  but  they  are  generally  songs  which,  compared  with  the 
highest  experiences  of  Christian  life,  are  like  ballads  compared 
with  the  symphonies  of  Beethoven.  A  man,  on  entering  a  Chris- 
tian life,  has  some  sweet  experiences ;  but  they  are  rather  excel- 
lences, exhilarations,  novelties,  rarities,  as  it  were,  than  those  more 
blessed  experiences  which  a  man  has  in  a  ripened  Christian  state. 
They  are  like  the  experiences  of  early  love.  I  believe  in  early  love ; 
but  I  believe  that  it  is  ungrown  love.  Beautiful  to  the  eye  is  the 
apple-tree  that  to-day  spreads  abroad  its  vast  dome  of  blossoms ;  but 
when  October  comes  it  will  be  more  beautiful  in  its  erimson  fruit, 
bending  its  boughs  till  they  touch  the  ground,  than  it  was  in  its 
blossoms.  And  I  hold  that  where  a  man  loves  truly,  affection  in 
him  grows  all  the  way  up  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.    Young 


APOSTOLIC  GHB18TIANITT.  177 

love  is  foolish  compared  with  old,  disciplined,  matured  love.  Love, 
like  everything  else,  must  be  educated  before  it  can  reach  its  per- 
fection. And  in  Christian  life  I  believe  there  are  great  triumphs, 
and  joys,  and  ecstasies  at  the  beginning ;  but  ah !  let  nobody  look 
back  to  the  time  of  his  conversion,  and  say,  "  I  would  that  I  could 
feel  as  I  did  then !"  You  ought  to  feel  transports  now  where  you 
felt  one  single  emotion  then.  Early  Christian  experience  is  a  single 
instrument  playing :  late  Christian  experience,  where  it  is  genuine, 
is  a  band  of  twenty  instruments  playing  in  harmony.  No  man  is 
born  into  a  full  Christian  life.  If  he  becomes  a  completely  de- 
veloped Christian,  it  is  by  the  attainment  of  one  Christian  quality, 
and  then  the  evolution  of  another  out  of  that,  and  then  of  another 
out  of  that,  until  he  shall  reach  the  sphere  and  element  of  the  God- 
head. Christian  character  is  to  be  wrought  out  by  long  experience 
and  by  constant  endeavor.  Who  ever  threw  an  acorn  into  the 
ground  and  at  once  got  an  oak  all  ripened  ?  Christian  manhood 
is  the  result  of  a  mighty  education  and  of  long  evolution. 

I  think  that  the  ideas  which  are  popular  in  respect  to  the 
cleansing  and  converting  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God  have  an  ele- 
ment in  them  which  it  is  important  and  desirable  to  retain ;  but  to 
suppose  that  the  grace  of  God  does  the  whole  work  for  a  man  is 
contrary  to  the  uniform  testimony  of  Scripture,  and  contrary  to 
the  universal  experience  of  God's  people. 

I  may  also  say  here,  that  while  I  have  a  great  respect  for  those 
who  are  seeking  a  higher  life,  I  would  thank  them  not  to  use  lan- 
guage which  misleads.  I  believe  that  a  man  can  find  a  realm  of 
peace  and  of  sympathy  with  God  which  shall  be  like  summer  to  his 
soul ;  but  when  men  tell  me  that  they  have  reached  perfection  in 
Christian  life,  I  laugh.  I  do  not  laugh  in  ridicule  or  scorn :  I 
laugh  for  the  same  reason  that  I  do  when  I  see  a  child  building  its 
playhouse,  and  making  believe  that  it  is  a  real  house,  or  going 
through  its  play-life  and  making  believe  that  it  is  real  life.  Do  you 
suppose  that  any  man  is  built  according  to  the  proportions  of  those 
elements  which  I  have  enumerated  to  you  ?  If  that  faith,  and  that 
virtue,  and  that  knowledge,  and  that  patience,  and  that  godliness, 
and  tliat  brotherly  love,  and  that  charity,  or  love  universal,  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking,  are  to  be  unfolded  in  a  man  till  he 
shall  be  a  microcosm  of  God  himself,  do  you  suppose  the  work  is 
perfected  in  this  world  ?  When  a  man  says,  "  I  have  perfect  peace," 
I  believe  him.  I  believe  there  are  conditions  in  which  a  man  may 
lean  on  God.  But  I  believe  that  there  is  a  great  peace  which  is  far 
from  being  completely  perfected,  and  which  is  always  unfolding. 
A  man  who  has  a  musical  ear  goes  into  a  workshop  and  sees 


178  APOSTOLIC  CHBISTIANITT. 

lying  there  large  quantities  of  material  of  various  kinds — iron,  and 
steel,  and  copper,  and  brass — and  he  says,  "Let  me  make  these 
available."  And  he  takes  the  various  kinds  of  metal,  and  puts 
them  into  a  furnace,  and  melts  them,  and  pours  the  liquid  which 
they  form  into  a  mold ;  and  when  it  is  cool  and  brought  out  it  is  a 
bell.  Such  is  the  result  of  the  combination  of  all  these  incoherent 
substances.  And  when  it  is  struck  it  is  musical.  And  he  says,  "  I 
have  hit  it!  It  is  perfect !"  But  it  is  a  monotone;  and  after  some 
thought  he  says,  "  No,  I  have  not  reached  perfection  yet.  There  is 
more  material  here.  What  if  I  should  make  another  bell  ?"  So  he 
goes  to  work  and  makes  a  second  bell.  And  then  he  makes  a  tliird ; 
and  then  a  fourth.  And  some  musician  says,  "  Hang  them  up  in 
yonder  tower"  ;  and  they  are  lifted  up  into  the  tower ;  and,  swing- 
ing there,  they  ring  out  through  the  air  glorious  chants  which 
call  men  to  God's  house.  The  man  has  now,  not  one  bell,  but 
eight  bells — and  they  are  but  a  few.  If  you  have  listened,  in  Ant- 
werp, to  the  vast  chime  of  bells  in  that  great  tower,  as  they  swing, 
filling  the  whole  atmosphere  with  music ;  if  you  have  stood  there 
and  heard  its  notes  as  they  sounded  out  through  the  frosty  air  of 
the  morning,  how  imperfect  would  seem  to  you  a  chime  of  eight 
bells,  as  compared  with  the  swarm  of  bells  of  which  that  chime  is 
composed ! 

God  has  lifted  up  the  spire  or  tower  of  the  human  soul,  and  has 
set  in  it  some  thirty  bells ;  and  they  are  all  to  be  brought  into 
accord.  There  are  two  or  three  that  strike  bass  notes  musically ; 
but  it  is  our  business  to  bring  harmony  into  the  whole  mighty  col- 
lection of  musical  instruments  that  are  swinging  in  the  belfry  of 
man's  soul. 

No  man  is  perfect  until  all  his  faculties  are  brought  into  harmo- 
nious play.  There  is  not  a  single  thing  in  my  watch  which,  being 
taken  out,  would  leave  it  good  for  anything.  God  never  put  a 
faculty  in  a  man  which  was  not  necessary ;  and  if  we  arc  to  be  per- 
fect, every  one  of  our  faculties  must  be  developed  and  used.  As 
God  looks  upon  men,  they  are  not  perfect  until  they  are  built  up 
into  the  lines  and  lineaments  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  have 
partaken  in  part  of  the  divine  nature.  Then  they  are  sons  of  God ; 
and  to  be  a  son  of  God  is  something  transcendently  glorious.  Eye 
hath  not  seen  it.  Ear  hath  not  heard  it.  I  would  go  around  the 
world  on  a  pilgrimage  of  curiosity  and  holy  ardor  to  look  at  such  a 
man.  For  I  think  there  is  nothing  on  earth  that  could  be  com- 
pared for  glory  and  marvelousness  with  a  man  who  has  been  builded 
by  the  hand  of  God  into  all  those  proportions  which  are  to  make 
him  a  son  of  God. 


APOSTOLIC  CHBI8TIANITY.  179 

III.  The  glorious  ideal  of  Christianity,  compared  with  all  the 
current  ideas,  stands  up  in  bright  and  rebuking  contrast.     How 
many   are   calling' men   to  church-membership!     IIow  many  are 
calling  men  to  morality !     How  many  men  are  called  to  philosophy ! 
How  many  men  are  called  to  philanthropy!     But  such  is  not  the 
call  of  God.     God  calls  men  to  be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature. 
And  the  providence  of  divine  grace  is  working  on  that  pattern  in- 
cessantly.   What  the  gardener  means,  and  what  Nature  means,  are 
very  different  things.     "What  the  grape-vine  means  is  to  drive  out 
its  branches,  rank  and  strong,  far  and  wide.    "What  the  gardener 
means  is  grapes;  and  therefore  he  cuts  back  the  vine  on  every  side. 
"  Let  me  grow,"  says  the  vine.     "  Bear,"  says  the  vintner.     "  Give 
me  more  room  for  my  leaves,"  says  the  vine.     "  Then  give  me  more 
grapes  for  my  wine,"  says  the  gardener.     Men  in  this  world  are 
seeking  to  develop  forces  that  shall  be  for  their  pleasure.     God  is 
meeting  those  who  are  his  own  with  blows  at  every  step,  and  beat- 
ing them  back.     He  is  tempering  this  man's  zeal  by  various  over- 
throws.    He  is  tempering  that  man's  pride  by  various  shames.     He 
is  subjecting  another  man  to  such  tests  as  shall  compel  him  to 
come  to  endurance.     In  various  ways  God's  providence  is  meddling 
with  us.     "We  are  all  praying  that  God's  will  may  be  done  ;  but  we 
do  not  like  the  answer  to  our  prayer  when  it  comes.    A  man  prays 
in  tlie  morning,  and  says,  "  Dear  Lord,  be  pleased  to  let  thy  will  be 
done  in  me  as*  it  is  in  heaven,"  and  he  goes  to  his  task ;  and  forget- 
ting his  prayer,  which  he  did  not  know  the  meaning  of,  and  feeling 
what  a  lordly  man  he  is,  and  carrying  himself  in  an  arrogant  way 
in  business,  he  arouses  the  opposition  of  men,  and  he  meets  with 
perplexities  at  every  step.     This  man  is  swindling  him ;  that  man 
is  demanding  more  than  he  is  entitled  to ;   another  man  is  drawing 
him  into  some  difficulty;  and  he  says,  "  I  do  not  know  v/hy I  should 
be  so  vexed  and  harassed."     The  man  is  praying  that  God's  will 
may  be  done  in  him.     God's  will  is  love ;   but  man's  will  is  pride 
and  self-seeking  and  domineering.     He  wishes  to  be  governor.     He 
Avishes  to  draw  everything  toward  him;   but  God  wishes  to  draw 
everything  out  of  him  toward  his  felloAV  men.     God  is  kind  to  this 
man.     He  would  educate  him  to  a  higher  conception  of  manhood. 
But  the  man  would  educate  himself  to  a  lower  and  earthly  con- 
ception. 

There  are  ten  thousand  experiences  which  befall  us  in  this  life, 
we  are  so  susceptible  to  the  influences  that  are  at  work  around 
about  us.  There  are  spheres  of  phenomena  that  apparently  lie  out- 
side of  the  influences  which  affect  us ;  but  everything  works 
together  for  good  to  tliem  who  love  God,  we  are  told,  whether  it  be 


180  APOSTOLIC  CHEISTIANITY. 

tears  or  smiles ;  whether  it  be  groans  or  laughter ;  whether  it  be 
sorrow  or  j  oy ;  whether  it  be  prosperity  or  adversity  ;  whether  it  be 
success  or  failure ;  whether  it  be  love  or  hatred.  All  things,  what- 
ever they  may  be,  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God. 
Love  is  the  universal  reconciliation — the  universal  solvent.  This 
glorious  idea  of  Christian  character  is  that  which  is  in  the  mind  of 
Grod,  though  it  may  not  be  that  which  is  in  the  mind  of  man. 

I  send  my  child  to  one  school  or  another  with  a  view  to  his 
future  life.  He  may  be  too  young  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the 
object  for  which  he  is  sent,  and  may  ask  for  this  indulgence  or  that 
change;  but  I  deny  his  request  because  I  do  not  think  it  is  com- 
patible with  that  better  and  nobler  development  which  I  am  seek- 
ing for  him. 

God,  who  is  the  universal  Father,  tells  us  that  he  is  seeking, 
not  what  we  wish,  but  what  we  need.  He  is  seeking  to  bring  us 
into  that  glorious  estate  in  which  we  shall  be  partakers  of  the  di- 
vine nature.     And  so  this  work  is  going  on. 

It  is  said  of  Solomon's  temple,  that  it  was  built  without  the 
sound  of  the  hammer.  The  soul  is  a  temple ;  and  God  is  silently 
building  it,  by  night  and  by  day.  Precious  thoughts  are  building 
it.  Disinterested  love  is  building  it.  Joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
building  it.  All-penetrating  faith  is  building  it.  Gentleness,  and 
meekness,  and  sweet  solicitude,  and  sympathy  are  building  it. 
All  virtue  and  all  goodness  are  workmen  upon  that  invisible  temple 
which  every  man  is. 

"  Ye  are  the  temple  of  God." 

The  foundations  are  laid,  the  lines  are  drawn,  and  silently,  night 
and  day,  the  walls  are  carried  up,  tier  after  tier  being  laid ;  and 
when  the  temple  is  built  it  shall  seem  as  if  it  were  composed  of 
precious  stones — of  beryl,  and  amethyst,  and  topaz,  and  diamond — 
so  that  at  last  when  it  is  completed,  and  there  comes  the  shout  of 
"  Grace,  grace,  unto  it !"  it  shall  be  a  temple  built  in  darkness  to 
reveal  light;  built  in  sorrow  to  produce  a  joy  which  shall  never  die. 
God  is  building  in  us  something  that  transcends  anything  that  man 
ever  knew ;  he  is  building  it  by  the  power  of  his  might ;  and 
he  is  building  it  by  us,  and  in  us,  and  through  us,  and  in  spite  of 
our  implorations  that  he  would  desist.  Blessed  be  God,  who  builds 
though  we  seek  to  hinder  his  building,  and  though  we  would  some- 
times even  pull  down  and  destroy  that  which  he  is  building ! 

IV.  If  these  views  are  generally  correct,  we  may  see  in  them  the 
correction  of  many  of  the  popular  sayings  and  tendencies  of  the 
day.  I  am  met  at  every  step  by  those  who  say,  "  I  ought  to  conform 
to  the  laws  of  my  being."    I  read  ad  nauseam  about  going  back  to 


APOSTOLIC  CEBISTIANITT.  181 

th(-.  laws  of  nature,  or  back  to  nature;  and  people  are  saying,  "If 
we  only  could  get  back  to  simple  nature,  how  easily  society  would 
get  along !" 

I  toll  you,  natui-e  does  not  lie  in  that  direction.  Nature  does 
not  lie  backward.  Which  way  is  the  eagle's  nature,  where  he  lies  in 
his  nest,  or  where  he  is,  in  the  might  of  his  power,  poised  under  the 
sun,  on  a  summer  day  ? 

Is  a  man's  nature  that  which  he  is  born  to,  or  that  which  he 
comes  to  by  unfolding  ?  Is  a  man's  nature  that  which  is  furthest 
from,  or  nearest  to,  that  which  God  meant  should  be  the  final  estate 
to  which  he  is  to  come  ?  Is  a  man's  nature  in  the  cradle,  or  in 
perfect,  ripe  manhood  ? 

You  tell  me  that  the  state  of  nature  is  a  state  of  blessedness  ? 
What  you  call  nature  is  a  state  of  savageism.  It  is  weakness.  It  is 
ignorance.  It  is  inexperience.  At  first,  nature  is  nothingness. 
Then  comes  gradual  acquisition.  But  a  man  is  all  the  time  grop- 
ing toward  himself.  A  man's  real  nature  lies  far  beyond  his  present 
sphere.  Nature  in  a  man  is  not  what  he  came  from,  but  what  he  is 
goin^  to. 

I  am  not,  therefore,  to  take  my  models  and  patterns  from  be- 
hind ;  but  this  one  thing  I  am  to  do :  I  am  to  forget  the  things 
which  are  behind,  and  to  Jook  on  beyond,  and  to  take  my  concep- 
tions of  true  manhood  and  noble  nature  from  the  ideals  which  I 
form  of  God ;  and  they  are  interpreted  in  my  experience  by  God's 
Spirit.  In  what,  therefore,  are  men  more  deceived  in  this  world, 
than  in  those  who  seem  to  have  been,  or  who  are  supposed  to  have 
been  successful  ?  They  wrap  themselves  up  in  self.  They  build 
houses  for  themselves.  They  live  in  them  with  great  outward 
splendor.  I  do  not  object  to  any  amount  of  outward  splendor,  pro- 
vided that  the  inward  filling  up  is  equivalent  to  or  in  proportion 
with  it.  But  men  of  great  learning,  men  of  great  managing  power, 
men  who  have  wealth,  men  who  have  force,  men  who  have  carried 
through  vast  worldly  enterprises,  are  pointed  out  to  the  young  as 
successful.  Alas!  That  which  they  have  achieved  is  not  true 
success.  It  is  outwardness.  It  is  success  for  this  world  only.  True 
success  lies  far  deeper  than  that.  He  has  succeeded  who,  in  spite 
of  envy,  and  jealousy,  and  selfishness,  and  pride,  and  every 
demoniac  influence,  has  learned  still  and  steadily  and  always  to  love. 
Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  That  supreme  law  of  God's  uni- 
verse by  which  we  are  being  transformed  into  the  likeness  of  God, 
is  fulfilled  in  that  one  word.  He  only  is  a  truly  successful  man  who 
has  something  more  in  this  world  than  outward  life  can  give. 
Wealth  has  its  uses,  and  knowledge  has  its  uses ;  and  we  have  the 


182  APOSTOLIC  CEBISTIANITY. 

apostle  saying,  "  I  am  but  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbal  if  I 
have  notliiug  more  than  that." 

On  the  other  hand,  if  these  thoughts  of  the  unfolding  of  man's 
nature  toward  the  divine,  be  true,  then  men  around  about  us  have 
more  in  them  than  we  have  been  wont  to  suppose.  Men  are  not  to 
be  estimated  by  their  values  in  society.  We  are  to  value  them  ac- 
•cording  to  the  standard  which  God  gives  us  when  he  hands  down 
the  golden  reed  of  the  sanctuary  by  which  all  things  in  heaven  are , 
measured,  and  by  which  all  things  on  earth  are  to  be  measured.  He 
who  is  meek,  and  lowly,  and  patient,  and  self-sacrificing,  and  Christ- 
like, may  wear  weeds,  may  be  covered  with  sackcloth,  may  be  clad 
in  a  beggar's  gabai'dine,  may  be  poor  outwardly ;  and  yet  he  may  be 
great  by  the  signs  and  tokens  of  sonship  inwardly.  But  we  do  not 
know  what  men  are  by  that  which  they  have  reached  here. 

When  Shakespeare  lay  in  the  cradle,  like  any  other  child,  and 
made  soft  and  cooing  sounds  like  those  of  a  dove,  who  ever  could 
have  dreamed,  listening  to  that  infant's  prattle,  what  songs  he  would 
yet  sing  for  the  ages  to  hear  ?  And  yet,  it  was  in  him ;  and  by 
working  he  came  to  himself. 

In  life,  who  can  tell  what  men  are  ?  When  I  lived  in  Cincin- 
nati, as  I  was  going  to  the  city  one  day,  I  saw  a  man  breaking  stone 
by  the  side  of  the  road.  He  looked  like  any  other  stone-breaking 
man ;  but  he  was  an  educated  German  gentleman  who  came  to  this 
country,  and  had  no  employment.  He  had  the  common  sense,  ra- 
ther than  to  starve,  to  take  the  first  business  that  he  could  find.  So 
he  hired  himself  to  break  stone  with  ordinary  workmen. 

I  remember  a  hostler  that  my  father  hired  in  Cincinnati,  who 
used  to  sit  in  the  kitchen.  As  I  went  in  and  out  I  saw  that  he 
was  constantly  occupied  with  his  book ;  and  I  found  that  it  was  a 
geography  on  a  mathematical  projection  ;  and  I  found  that  it  was 
as  familiar,  almost,  as  A  B  C  to  him.  I  questioned  him  about 
Latin  (for  I  saw  that  he  had  a  Latin  book),  and  I  found  that  he 
could  read  and  speak  Latin.  I  asked  him  if  he  was  acquainted 
with  Greek,  and  he  said,  "  I  can  read  it,  but  I  cannot  speak  it." 
Here  was  this  man  scrubbing  my  father's  horse,  and  he  knew 
more  in  his  little  finger  than  I  knew  in  my  whole  body.  If  you 
look  inside  of  men,  and  see  Avhat  is  there ;  if  the  dross  is  purged 
away,  and  you  behold  that  which  is  to  constitute  manhood,  and 
which  is  to  be  glorified,  and  Avhich  is  to  last  throughout  the  eternal 
ages,  the  last  shall  be  first,  and  the  first  shall  be  last.  There 
is  going  to  be  a  great  coming  down  and  a  great  going  up  in  the  day 
of  disclosure.  For,  he  who  has  the  sovereignty  of  God  in  him  (and 
that  is  not  might  but  quality) ;  he  who  has  the  creative  power,  the 


AFOSTOLIG  CEBISTIANITY,  183 

vision-power,  the  enduring  power  of  divine  love,  however  poor  he 
may  be  on  earth,  whatever  may  be  his  lot,  whatever  may  be  the 
function  of  his  hand — ^he,  if  our  eye  could  but  see  it,  is  already  be- 
ginning to  shoot  out  the  light  of  glory  that  is  in  him.  The  proudest 
man  that  lives  in  the  city,  and  rolls  in  tides  of  wealth,  and  indulges 
in  pride  and  selfishness  and  self-seeking,  may  be  outshone  by  the  poor 
cripple,  who  goes  limping  through  the  world,  and  who  manages  to 
get  only  just  enough  to  keep  soul  and  body  together,  and  creeps 
down  night  by  night  to  divide  that  with  some  other  miserable 
wretch.  Your  queens,  your  kings,  your  merchant  princes,  your 
great  men  of  the  earth,  when  God  looks  upon  them,  go  down,  down, 
down;  and  the  poor  in  spirit,  the  humble,  the  outcast,  go  up,  and 
up,  and  up.  The  great  men  of  the  earth — those  that  seek  them- 
selves, and  those  that  are  the  most  consiDicuous — in  the  sight  of 
God  have  not  the  development,  though  they  may  have  the  seed  of 
that  nature  which  is  to  be  eternal  and  divine. 

Christian  brethren,  how  hard  a  thing  it  is  to  be  a  Christian  ! 
How  hard  ?  No,  not  any  harder  than  it  is  not  to  be  one.  To  live 
is  hard.  Whichever  you  take  is  hard.  You  may  change  the  kind 
of  hard,  but  all  life  is  hard.  A  man  has  to  take  up  his  cross  as 
much  to  serve  the  devil  as  he  does  to  serve  God.  It  costs  him  as 
much  pain  and  care  and  trouble  to  be  wicked  as  it  does  to  be  vir- 
tuous, and  after  a  little  while  a  great  deal  more ;  because  the  ways 
of  providence  are  ways  of  work  toward  purity  and  disinterestedness 
and  nobility ;  and  men  who  are  in  those  ways  have  on  their  side 
God  and  all  his  angels ;  while  wicked  men  are  working  against  God 
and  his  angels,  and  are  therefore  working  greatly  against  the  cur- 
rent. To  begin  to  be  a  Christian  may  be  called  a  dijQScult  thing ; 
but  it  is  so  only  at  the  beginning.  How  great  a  thing  it  is  to  be 
a  Cliristian,  if  it  be — not  to  join  a  church,  not  to  say  prayers,  not  to 
pay  for  the  support  of  the  Gospel,  not  to  perform  any  outward  ser- 
vice, but  to  aspire  to  the  royalt.y  of  that  glorious  manhood  which 
shall  make  us  children  of  God,  so  that  we  shall  resemble  him;  so 
tliat  looking  into  our  souls  as  into  a  mirror,  we  shall  gather  some 
small  but  real  conception  of  the  nature  and  beauty  and  desirable- 
ness of  that  God  toward  whom  we  are  going. 

I  call  you,  young  men  and  maidens,  not  to  any  church ;  I  call 
you  not  to  any  mere  low  conception  of  morality;  I  call  you  not  to 
sectarianism ;  I  call  you  to  the  spirit  of  the  living  God ;  I  call  you 
to  the  acceptance  and  recognition  of  the  mercy  of  God  which  awaits 
you  in  heaven  ;  I  call  you  to  remember  that  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus 
Christ  you  are  made,  if  you  will,  the  sons  of  God,  and  that  you  are 
to  live  toward  God  in  the  hope  of  being  like  him,  and  rejoicing 
with  him  forever  and  forever. 


184  APOSTOLIC  CHEISTIANITY. 

Oh,  to  them  who  hear  the  call  of  God  the  earth  is  conquered ! 
To  them  there  is  no  poverty  ;  to  them  there  are  no  sorrows.  The 
beginnings  of  triumphs  which  are  to  be  consummated  in  heaven, 
are  sent  down  to  God's  people  here.  They  who  are  living  so  as  to 
develop  in  themselves  this  divine  likeness  have  already  that  power 
which  makes  all  things  theirs.  The  heaven  is  theirs.  The  earth  is 
theirs.  They  belong  to  each  other.  They  all  belong  to  Christ. 
His  providence  enwraps  them.  His  grace  is  cheering  them,  even  as 
the  summer  warmths  cheer  the  whole  continent  to-day.  They  are 
surrounded  by  the  love  and  mercy  of  God. 

I  call  you  to  a  higher  destiny  than  any  which  lies  within  the 
bounds  of  this  horizon.  I  call  you  to  a  better  companionship  than 
any  church  can  give  you.  I  call  you  "  to  the  general  assembly  and 
church  of  the  first-born,  which  are  written  in  heaven,  and  to  God 
the  Judge  of  all,  and  to  the  spirits  of  just  men  made^  perfect,  and 
to  Jesus  the  mediator  of  the  new  covenant."  I  call  you  by  the  aspi- 
rations of  your  better  nature.  I  call  you  by  those  vague  longings 
which  you  have,  but  which  you  perhaps  cannot  interpret,  and  which 
make  you  feel  like  a  child  that  is  homesick,  or  that  has  lost  its 
father,  and  knows  not  where  to  find  him.  I  call  you  by  all  the  sor- 
row which  you  have  experienced  on  earth,  and  by  all  the  joy  that 
you  know  yourself  to  be  capable  of  experiencing  in  the  land  which 
is  to  come.     I  call  you  to  glory  and  honor  and  immortality. 

Count  not  yourselves  unworthy  of  this  blessedness.  Go  not 
with  the  grunting  swine.  Go  not  with  the  lion  nor  the  bear.  Give 
not  yourself  away  to  power,  or  lust,  or  momentary  pleasure,  that, 
like  the  light  of  the  sun  on  the  agitated  waves,  flashes  and  goes  out. 
I  call  you  to  thatVhich  is  behind  the  stars,  and  higher  than  they — 
to  the  God,  unalterable,  ineffable,  eternal. 


APOSTOLIC  GEBISTIANITT.  185 


PRAYEE  BEFORE  THE  SERMON.  * 

Why  hast  thou  granted  unto  us,  O  Lord,  such  treasure  in  our  children? 
How  couldst  thou  spare  them  to  us  ?  How  didst  thou  dare  to  send  their 
unsullied  souls  into  this  world?  Why  were  we  so  ignorant  and  so  inex- 
perienced ?  Why  should  we  love  so  much,  and  know  so  little  ?  Why  should 
we  be  unable  to  transmit  to  our  children  the  knowledge  which  by  mistake 
or  under  trial  and  divine  guidance  we  have  gained,  so  that  every  one  must 
try  again,  and  learn  through  his  own  mistakes  and  ignorance  and  wayward- 
ness ?  Why  were  pride  and  selflshnessness  set  to  bring  up  these  children 
that  they  may  become  thie  sons  of  God  ?  Why  is  our  ignorance  put  over 
against  their  dark  minds  to  give  them  light  ?  We  wonder  that  thou  shouldst 
do  so — thou  whose  wisdom  is  inscrutable.  This  is  only  one  of  the  multitude 
of  those  things  around  about  us  which  tell  us  that  Thou  art  still  saying, 
"What  I  do  now  ye  know  not,  but  ye  shall  know  hereafter."  Yet,  much 
are  we  learning  of  thy  purposes.  Thou  hast  sent  these  precious  children  to 
us  to  teach  us.  Who  of  us  all  would  care  to  bend  the  back  of  pride  and 
yield  ourselves  up  one  to  another  ?  Strength  will  not  give  way  to  strength ; 
but  to  weakness  how  supple  is  pride,  and  how  does  all  our  manhood  kneel 
down  to  worship  at  the  cradle !  Who  of  us  could  teach  another  the  self- 
sacrifice  of  love?  And  yet,  thou  art  in  every  household  awakening  that 
love  which  knows  no  weariness,  and  which  yields  itself  day  and  night. 
Who  could  teach  us  how  to  live,  not  for  self,  but  for  another?  But  thou  art 
teaching  us  to  pour  out  the  best  gifts  of  our  Uves  in  thought  and  in  feeling 
'or  our  cbildren.  Oh,  that  there  were  the  understanding  in  us  to  teach  us 
how  to  widen  our  sphere,  and  to  live  for  all  as  we  live  for  ourselves,  and  to 
rise  through  the  majesty  of  weakness  and  the  divinity  of  love  and  self- 
sacrifice,  in  the  royal  character  of  the  children  of  God  ! 

Lord,  we  tbank  thee  for  this  blessed  revelation  of  the  cradle.  Holy  men 
have  spoken,  and  by  thy  Son  Jesus  also  we  have  learned,  the  counsel  and 
the  will  of  God ;  but  there  are  voices  still  chanting  thy  will  in  the  household. 
Angels  still  are  calling  to  us.  We  are  still  taught  by  the  power  of  the  heart 
through  the  little  children  that  are  granted  unto  us. 

God  bless  the  little  children  that  have  been  this  morning  brought  forth 
by  rejoicing  parents  in  the  midst  of  sympathizing  brethren.  These  parents 
have  signified  their  purpose  to  bring  them  up  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  Help 
them  to  do  it.  May  their  hearts  never  be  discouraged.  May  they  never 
give  up  hope. 

If  these  children  should  not  grow  up,  have  compassion  upon  the  hour  of 
darkness,  when  love  weeps,  and  the  heart  seems  broken.  Lord,  thou  who 
hast  known  the  very  sepulcher  itself,  and  all  the  sorrows  which  lead  to  it, 
canst  counsel  those  who  are  bereaved.  Sorrow  is  vincible  by  divine  love. 
But  if  these  children  grow  up  may  they  not  depart  from  the  nurture  and 
admonition  of  the  Lord.  May  they  be  so  trained  that  virtue  shall  be  the 
habit  of  their  life,  and  that  piety  shall  spring  from  virtue.  May  they  blossom 
into  the  manhood  of  Christian  life. 

We  pray,  O  Lord,  if  any  of  them  shall  wander  off  upon  their  voyage,  and 
strange  currents  shall  take  them  from  their  path,  or  winds,  descending, 
shall  sweep  them  away,  that  thou  wilt  bring  them  back  again.  Thou  who 
didst  rise  up  and  rebuke  the  wind  and  the  wave  and  save  the  ship,  remember 
those  whose  bark  is  tempest-tossed;  those  who  seem  perishing  in  their 
children  while  thou  seemest  to  them  to  sleep.    For  years  they  bave  cried 

*Immedlute:y  following  the  baptism  of  children. 


186  APOSTOLIC  CEBISTIANITY. 

out  uiitj  tlijee,  and  longed  for  succor;  and  thou  hasf  not  come;  and  still 
the  wind  blows,  and  their  heavens  are  dark.  Lord  Jesus,  appear  for  such. 
Appear  for  all  those  who  are  seeking  thee  in  the  way  of  self -sacrifice  and  of 
love  for  others,  and  whose  way  is  hard,  and  whose  purposes  seem  to  ripen 
into  near  blessings.  Will  the  Lord  inspire  them  with  faith ;  with  a  patient 
waiting  for  the  Lord;  with  a  trust  which  death  itself  cannot  move.  Thou 
canst  not  do  evil.  Thou  wilt  fulfill  thy  promises.  Thou  wilt  not  forsake  to 
the  uttermost,  nor  to  the  end,  those  who  trust  in  thee. 

And  now,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest 
upon  all  the  young  who  are  in  our  midst.  May  they  grow  up  in*  o  loveliness, 
and  strength,  and  fruitfulness,  in  all  things  that  are  just,  and  true,  and 
noble  before  God  and  before  men.  Bless  all  the  efforts  which  we  are 
making  for  their  instruction  iu  the  Sabbath-schools  under  our  charge,  in 
the  Bible-classes,  and  iu  all  the  ways  in  which  we  seek  to  redeem  them  from 
ignorance,  aud  to  sbield  them  from  temptation,  and  to  arm  them  with 
knowledge  and  with  virtue. 

We  pray  that  those  who  go  forth  to  visit  the  wandering  and  the  outcast, 
those  who  go  to  minister  to  the  sick  and  the  imprisoned,  may  more  and 
more  be  clothed  with  all  the  sweetness  and  power  of  the  love  of  Christ. 
And  may  their  Grospel— the  Gospel  of  a  living  and  loving  heart^never  have 
an  end  so  long  as  they  dwell  upon  the  earth. 

^Ve  pray  for  all  thy  dear  people  of  every  name.  We  beseech  of  thee 
that  thou  wilt  remember,  this  morning,  all  who  are  gathered  here  with 
their  thanksgivings  or  their  sorrows,  with  their  hopes  or  their  fears.  Look 
upon  those  who  consecrate  themselves  anew  to  the  service  of  the  Lord.  Look 
upon  all  those  who  are  just  beginning  the  service  of  Christ  openly  and 
avowedly.  Look  upon  those  who  are  ia  the  midst  of  the  battle  of  life,  and 
who  are  still  striving  though  they  are  drawing  near  to  the  end  of  it. 
Prepare  thine  angels  to  convoy  them,  and  to  bring  them  with  great  joy 
and  rejoicing  to  t  leir  Father's  house. 

We  beeseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  a  blessing  to  rest  upon  the 
preachers  who  are  among  us.  May  they  feel  the  ties  of  brotherhood  and 
the  inspu'atiou  of  God's  blessing  resting  upon  them  and  us  in  common.  And 
may  our  hearts  go  out  after  them.  May  we  feel  that  we  are  related  to  all 
who  love  and  strive  iu  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the  churches  of  this  city.  Revive  thy 
work  in  them.  Fulfill  all  thy  gracious  purposes  which  thy  providences  have 
indicated. 

Remember  thy  servants  who  are  in  convention  assembled  from  all  parts 
of  this  land,  met,  in  t'.iy  providence,  to  take  counsel  together  on  important 
subjects  touching  thy  work.  We  pray  that  they  may  be  fillc-Hl  with  the 
Spirit  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Master,  and  that  piety  may  be  adorned  aud  made 
lovely  in  their  midst,  and  that  all  their  deliberations  may  bo  inspired  by 
tbat  wisJom  which  cometh  down  from  on  high,  and  that  they  may  return 
to  their  several  sphe.es  of  labor  for  a  year  of  more  abundant  ingathering. 

Look  upon  all  the  churches  whose  representatives  are  gathered 
together  and  are  holding  couneil  upon  things  which  pertain  to  those 
interests  of  thy  Zion  which  are  under  their  charge. 

Unite  ITiy  people  more  and  more.  May  they  cease  to  dispute  with  each 
other.  May  they  cease  to  build  high  walls  of  division.  May  they  cease  to 
magnify  the  exterior.  More  and  more  may  the  inner  spirit  grow;  and 
more  and  more,  by  the  spirit,  may  there  come  that  unity  which  has  long 
been  si2;hed  for  and  sought  after  by  thine  own  children  on  earth,  and  which 
was  prayed  lor  by  our  Master. 

Grant  that  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  may  be  known  in  all  the 


APOSTOLIC  CHE18T1ANITF.  187 

earth  as  a  name  of  power.  Give  victory  to  thy  servants  who  are  preaching 
in  foreign  lauds,  and  making  known  the  unsearchable  riches  of  the 
Saviour  among  the  heathen. 

We  pray  for  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men  everywhere— for  the 
oppressed;  for  the  ignorant;  for  those  who  are  bound  by  superstitions. 
We  pi-ay  lor  the  coming  of  that  day  whose  morning  'light  we  see  upon  the 
edge  of  the  mountains.  Star  of  the  Morning,  come  down,  that  the  Sun  of 
righteousness  may  come  up.  Oh,  grant  that,  at  last,  the  light  may  burst 
forth  in  universal  radiance,  and  tbat  all  the  earth,  redeemed  at  length 
from  sorrow,  may  cease  its  wail  and  its  requiem,  and  chant  its  song  of 
victory,  until  the  voices  of  thy  people  throughout  the  world— the  whole 
family  named  of  God  in  heaven  and  upon  earth— may  unite  together 
praising  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  I    A7nen. 


PEAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  open  to  our  souls  the  realms  of  thy 
truth.  May  we  feel  thy  drawings  if  we  cannot  hear  thy  silent  voice.  The 
ear  hath  not  heard,  the  eye  hath  not  seen,  it  hath  not  entered  into  the  heart 
of  man  to  conceive,  what  things  thou  hast  laid  up  for  those  that  love  thee. 
And  though  in  olden  times  thou  didst  reveal  to  thy  servants,  and  though 
in  later  days  thou  hast  disclosed  to  thy  people, great  and  WKiiderful  things, 
there  are  yet  more  things  to  be  made  known  than  we  have  dreamed  of. 
But,  O  God,  while  we  know  our  weakness,  this  one  thing  we  know  :  thou 
art;  thou  art  love;  thy  realm  is  universal;  thou  art  the  victorious  God; 
thou  art  the  longing  and  the  loving  God  whom  Jesus  Christ  came  into  tbe 
world  to  set  forth  before  us.  We  behold  his  suffering.  We  read  the  secret 
lesson.  Thou  art  the  healing  God.  Thou  dost  bear  and  forbeai',  and  art 
willing  to  suffer.  And  in  thine  infinite  altitude  thou  art  not  sitting  in 
leisure  and  enjoying  thyself.  Thou  art  everywhere  the  Nurse.  Thou  art 
the  Father  of  the  father  and  the  Mother  of  the  mother.  Thou  art  the 
working  God.  Thou  art  the  God  that  by  tears  dost  interpret  something  of 
thyself  to  men;  that  by  heart-ache  dost  interpret  to  men  the  household; 
that  by  parental  solicitude,  by  yearnings,  by  forethouglit  and  caie  of  men 
one  for  another;  by  all  the  sweetness  of  early  love;  by  the  plentitude  and 
variety  of  things  good;  by  the  discipline  of  life;  and  by  all  that  is  noblest 
and  best  in  us,  art  giving  us  the  letters  which  spell  thine  own  self,  above  all, 
above  ages,  above  the  accumulated  treasures  and  riches  of  other  genera- 
tions. Thou  art  grpater  than  our  gi-eatest  and  best  things.  Supernal,  thou 
art  still  everywhere  on  earth.  Thou  art  full  of  justice;  and  though  thou 
dost  use  pain  as  a  means  of  chastising,  yet  love  is  regent,  and  all  things  are 
swayed  by  it,  that  thou  inayest  bring  home  to  thyself  sons  and  daughters 
for  everlasting  joy  and  glory. 

Let  us  understand  our  calling  in  Christ  Jesus.  Lead  us  into  that  higher 
thought  of  thee.  Make  life  more  sacred  to  us.  May  the  inside  of  our  soul- 
life  seem  to  us  more  real  thap  the  outward  flaming  of  the  sun.  What 
matters  it  what  we  oat,  or  drink,  or  whether  we  lie  down  or  rise  up,  or  how 
wc  are  clad  ?  1 1  is  after  these  things  that  the  Gentiles  seek.  Oh,  that  we  may 
seek  the  kingdom  of  God  and  its  righteousness,  and  that  this  may  be  our 
Joy  in  life,  our  stay  in  conflict,  our  hope  in  dying,  and  the  realisation  of  our 
waking! 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  the  praise  forever 
and  forever.    Amen. 


XI. 

Signs  of  the  Times. 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


"  When  it  is  evening,  ye  say,  It  will  be  fair  weather :  for  the  aky  is  red. 
And  in  the  morning,  It  will  be  foul  weather  to-day ;  for  the  sky  is  red  and 
lowering.  O  ye  hypocrites,  ye  can  discern  the  face  of  the  sky;  but  can  ye 
not  discern  the  signs  of  the  times  ?"— Matt,  xvi.,  3, 3. 


An  account  of  the  same  interview  is  given  a  little  differently  in 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  Luke  : 

"  When  ye  see  a  cloud  rise  out  of  the  west,  straightway  ye  say,  There 
coraeth  a  shower;  and  so  it  is.  And  when  ye  see  the  south  wind  blow,  ye 
say.  There  will  be  heat;  and  it  cometh  to  pass.  Ye  hypocrites,  ye  can  dis- 
cern the  face  of  the  sky  and  of  the  earth ;  but  how  is  it  that  ye  do  not 
discern  this  time?" 

The  Scribes  and  Pharisees  were  so  busy  with  the  instruments  of 
religion,  and  the  doctrines  of  religion,  and  the  customs  of  religion, 
that  they  had  little  opportunity  to  take  care  of  men,  or  to  be  inter- 
ested in  them,  or  to  see  what  the  providence  of  God  was  doing 
among  them,  or  to  watch  the  movement  of  things,  good  or  bad. 

The  ground  was  shaking  under  their  feet ;  they  were  standing 
on  the  eve  of  events  which  were  to  eclipse  the  glory  of  the  Jewish 
people ;  they  were  within  a  hand's  breadth  of  the  greatest  catas- 
trophe that  had  ever  visited  their  nation  j  they  were  within  an  arm's 
length  of  that  revolution  which  was  to  bring  down  their  capital 
and  scatter  their  people ;  already  the  symptoms  were  in  the  sky, 
and  the  tremblings  were  in  the  earth  j  and  yet  they  did  not  see  them 
nor  believe  them.  And  Jesus  reproached  them,  that  they  were  so 
observant  of  the  mutable  appearances  in  the  heavens,  but  were 
blind  to  great  moral  events.  In  other  words,  their  refusal  to  look 
and  see  what  God  was  doing  by  his  providence  in  the  time  in 
which  they  lived  was  a  matter  of  reproach,  and  of  just  reproach, 
on  the  part  of  the  Master. 

Let  us  not  fall  into  the  same  condemnation,  nor  consider  any- 
thing which  deeply  concerns  the  welfare  of  our  country  and  our 
kind  as  unworthy  of  our  consideration. 

I  am  going  to  speak,  to-night,  upon  a  theme  suggested  by  the 
"  strikes  "  of  the  working  men  ;  and  in  respect  to  the  whole  matter 

ScxnAT  EvExiNo.  May  19,  1872.  Lessox  :  ACTS  XLX.,  23-41.  HYMNS  (Plymouth  CoU 
lecttOD):  Nos.  G08,  705, 10-^2. 


190  SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

to  ■wliicli  that  particular  thing  is  incidental,  or  of  which  it  is  but 
an  accident  or  development — the  universal  stirring  up  of  the  work- 
ing men  of  the  civilized  nations  of  the  globe,  the  present  tenden- 
cies, what  they  portend,  and  what  relations  they  sustain  to  Chris- 
tianity and  to  civilization,  and  what  duties  they  impose  upon  us  if 
we  are  wise  enough  to  discern  the  signs  of  the  times. 

I  remark,  first,  that  never  before,  probably,  in  the  history  of  the 
world,  was  there  such  organization  of  laboring  men  as  there  is 
now.  There  have  been  times  when  guilds  were  formed,  each  par- 
ticular trade  organizing  a  self-protecting  guild.  This  is  an  inheri- 
tance which  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  mediaeval  days ;  and  it 
stretches  back  in  ruder  forms  far  anterior  to  those.  The  peculi- 
arity of  our  time  is  this :  that  each  industry  which  organizes  for  its 
self-protection  and  helpfulness  is  coming  into  affiliation  with  its 
neighboring  industries,  so  that  working  men  everywhere,  and  all 
kinds  of  working  men,  of  the  scores,  and  scores  of  difi'erent  trades, 
are  having  an  understanding  with  each  other.  And  that  is  not 
all.  The  working  men  of  contiguous  nations  are  coming  into  rela- 
tion^ of  amity  and  sympathy  and  cooperation,  and  are  stretching 
out  their  afiiliations  so  that  now  it  may  be  said  that  the  working 
men  of  the  civilized  globe  are  in  sympathy,"  and  that  there  is  an 
understanding  among  them  which  is  becoming  more  and  more 
perfect  every  year.  The  power  of  organization  I  need  not  ex- 
plain to  you.  It  is  a  tremendous  poAver.  Wisely  made,  wisely 
managed,  wisely  directed,  it  may  be  said  that  it  gives  the  scepter 
to  Labor.  And  it  holds  the  scepter  only  because  it  has  the  vote. 
For  the  vote  is  the  opening  vial  or  bottle  of  the  fable,  and  the  genie 
has  gone  out  and  swelled  to  incredible  proportions,  and  never  can 
be  put  back  again.  Men  who  have  the  vote  have  access  to  every 
single  element  of  power  in  society ;  and  if  they  understand  them- 
selves, and  organize  skillfully  and  wisely,  they  will  be  stronger 
than  the  throne.  Every  government  stands  on  the  vote ;  every 
administration  stands  on  votes;  every  policy  stands  upon  votes; 
the  security  of  property,  of  order,  and  of  life  itself,  stands  on 
votes.  And  the  working  men  of  the  globe  have  in  enormous 
disproportion  the  elements  of  universal  power.  That  is,  they  have 
numbers ;  and  numbers  will  carry  the  day,  where  they  are  wisely 
organized  and  directed. 

The  great  trouble  of  past  times,  so  far  as  the  working  men  are 
concerned,  has  been  that  they  have  been  outwitted.  They  have  not 
had  the  wisdom  to  regulate  their  forces.  They  have  failed  for  want 
of  guidance.  They  have  had  power, — physical  power,  and  even  po- 
litical power ;  but  they  have  not  known  how  to  use  it.    As  a  slen- 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  191 

der  man  with  a  little  rapier,  can,  by  his  dexterity  and  skill,  slay  a 
hundred  Goliaths,  any  one  of  whom  could  crush  him  with  a  finger- 
stroke  ;  as  the  great,  coarse,  animal  strength  of  a  giant  is  not  a 
match  for  the  rare  skill  of  the  subtle  fencer,  slight  though  he  may 
be  ;  so  the  great  mass  of  the  working  men  have  been  swayed  hither 
and  thither  by  the  dexterity  of  wily  politicians,  of  managing  men, 
who  have  had  power  and  skill  in  state-craft ;  but  now,  in  this  later 
day,  with  a  growing  intelligence,  and  with  an  increase  of  wealth 
among  men,  organization  means  something  different  from  what  it 
meant  a  hundred,  or  five  hundred,  or  a  thousand  years  ago. 

I  do  not  know  but  you  think  that  the  organization  of  the 
working  men  of  the  globe  is  a  thing  to  be  laughed  at,  and  turned 
off  with  a  word ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  a  matter  to  be  passed 
over  lightly.  I  cast  the  plummet  of  thought  into  it,  and  I  perceive 
that  the  depths  of  it  are  too  great  for  men  to  despise.  And  on 
the  Avhole,  Avitli  all  their  mistakes,  with  all  their  errors,  and  with  all 
the  heresies  that  are  for  the  present  wrapped  up  in  their  doctrines, 
I  am  in  hearty  sympathy  with  these  working  men.  I  hail  this 
movement  of  theirs.  It  is  a  sign  of  life.  Society  does  not  lie  like 
unleavened  dough.  It  is  leavening.  And  although  it  will  bring 
some  disturbance,  and  create  some  revolutions,  and  lead  to  a  great 
many  errors,  and  Entail  a  great  deal  of  mischief,  nevertheless,  I 
thank  God  that  there  is  a  rising  of  men  from  the  bottom  of  so- 
ciety toward  the  top.  My  heart  goes  with  the  men  who  are  poor 
and  ignorant,  and  who  are  working  for  liberty  to  be  larger  and 
better. 

Quite  independent  of  the  fact  that  it  is  the  spring-time  and  ger- 
minant  period  of  the  classes  who  have  been  neglected,  there  are 
special  reasons  why  I  look  upon  this  development  with  sym- 
pathy. I  sympathize  at  heart,  thoroughly,  with  the  feeling  that 
labor,  as  a  thing  which  has  been  trodden  under  foot  and  de- 
spised, should  be  elevated.  I  know  very  well  what  the  old  philoso- 
phies were.  The  Jews  have  been  ahead  of  civilization  in  almost 
every  element.  You  cannot  afford  to  despise  the  Jews.  You  are 
the  sons  of  Abraham  yourselves.  Your  commonwealth  was  born 
out  of  Jewish  ideas.  Your  civilization  was  borrowed  from  the 
Jews,  very  largely.  I  honor  and  revere  that  stock.  They  honored 
labor,  and  were  ahead  of  others  in  honoring  it.  They  honored  it 
at  the  time  when  many  of  the  republics  of  the  Orient  despised  it. 
When  Greece,  by  her  philosophers,  was  determining  that  her  com- 
monwealth should  expel  from  citizenship  all  mechanic  craftsmen, 
and  all  who  engaged  in  manual  labor,  then  the  g^'eat  Hebrew  com- 
monwealth was  making  labor  honorable.     But  almost  only  there  was 


192  SIGNS  OF  TEi:  TIMES. 

it  honored.  Generally  speaking,  taking  the  world  together,  labor 
has  not  been  regarded  as  honorable.  If  a  man  has  been  obliged  to 
earn  his  living  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  that  fact  has  been  con- 
sidered prima  facie  evidence  that  he  lacked  manhood  and  worth. 
It  has  been  considered  vulgar  for  a  man  to  work  with  his  hands ; 
and  men  have  not  been  disabused  of  that  idea  even  to  this  day.  A 
lawyer  may  go  to  the  plow — that  is  no  disgrace ;  a  minister  may 
own  a  farm — that  is  very  creditable;  a  merchant  may  carry  on 
agricultural  pursuits — there  is  nothing  out  of  the  way  in  that. 
That  is,  if  a  man  has  other  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  it  is  well 
enough  for  him  to  engage  in  what  are  called  manual  occupations; 
but  if  a  man  is  neither  a  lawyer,  nor  a  minister,  nor  a  merchant, 
but  is  a  poor  man^  and  has  to  work,  guiding  the  plow,  or  perform- 
ing other  duties  on  a  farm,  or  engaging  in  physical  labor  of  any  sort, 
to  earn  his  bread,  people  think  it  is  vulgar. 

"  No,  I  do  not  think  it  is  vulgar."  I  beg  your  pardon,  you  do. 
If  your  daughter  were  going  to  marry  a  man  of  slender  stature,  and 
no  brains,  but  with  much  property  and  a  good  standing  in  fash- 
ionable society,  you  would  think  that  that  was  a  favorable  connec- 
tion; but  if  she  were  going  to  marry  a  man  who  was  a  worker  in 
the  soil,  and  who  had  never  been  out  of  his  native  town,  but  who 
had  a  nobleman's  heart  in  him,  and  was  every  inch  a  man,  you 
would  think  that  that  was  a  mis-alliance — a  poor  match  for  your 
child.  The  only  reason  in  the  world  that  you  could  give  would  be 
that  he  was  a  worker,  and  that  your  daughter  was  not  intended  for 
such  a  connection  as  that. 

Now,  I  hail  the  day  when  work  becomes  discontented — for  there 
is  a  sense  in  which  discontent  means  aspiration.  I  do  not  say  that 
all  discontent  is  honorable ;  but  I  say  that  that  discontent  which 
thinks,  which  plans,  which  waits,  which  means  improvement,  which 
organizes  for  improvement,  and  which  is  taking  every  step  that  it 
can  toward  improvement,  is  honorable.  I  hold  it  to  be  a  result 
of  the  working  of  divine  providence. 

I  believe  that  the  day  will  dawn  when  work  will  come  up,  not 
simply  in  skill  and  intelligence,  but  in  moral  Avorth.  The  day  will 
come  when  a  man  will  go  through  college  for  the  sake  of  being  a 
better  mechanic ;  when  a  man  will  acquire  a  thorough  education 
for  the  sake  of  making  a  better  farmer ;  when  a  man  will  educate 
himself  for  the  sake  of  larger  manhood,  thougn  ho  be  a  worker. 

I  perceive,  also,  in  this  impatience  of  the  great  working  mass 
of  men  in  civilized  nations  a  token  of  growth  in  another  way.  Tliere 
are  circumstances  in  which  men  who  are  degraded  do  not  find  their 
oondition  burdensome,  and  are  not  impatient  under  it.    The  lower 


SIGNS  OF  TEE  TIMES.  193 

classes  who  lived  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time  did  not  find  their  con- 
dition burdensome.  They  lived  almost  as  stalled  cattle  live.  They 
were  essentially  rude  and  undeveloped ;  and  their  condition  was 
more  nearly  fitted  to  their  actual  interior  state  than  a  higher  con- 
dition would  have  been.  But  as  civilization  has  increased,  and  as 
the  comforts  of  life  have  increased,  the  working-meu  have  perceived 
that  a  higher  condition  is  preferable;  and  the  condition  which  they 
Avould  have  taken  contentedly  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  they  would 
resent  now. 

That  is  the  law  of  development.  We  rise  from  a  lower  state  to 
a  higher ;  and  when  we  are  in  the  higher  we  resent  the  conditions 
of  the  lower.  Our  appetites  increase,  and  our  tastes  increase,  and 
our  wants  increase.  That  is  barbarism  which  says  that  sim- 
plicity is  the  highest  condition  of  mankind,  and  that  he  is  the 
richest  man  who  wants  the  least.  I  say  that  a  man  is  on  the  way 
toward  civilization  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  mouths  which 
you  get  opened  in  him.  I  do  not  say  that  he  is  the  most  civi- 
lized who  has  the  greatest  number  of  things  put  into  his  mouth— 
the  most  wine,  the  most  meat,  the  most  bread,  the  most  of  all 
forms  of  luxury.  A  superfluity  of  these  things,  and  the  enjoy- 
ment of  them  by  the  appetite,  I  do  not  believe  in  ;  but  I  do  believe 
that  when  a  man  grows,  God  opens  a  mouth  in  him,  not  for  the  sus- 
tenance of  the  body,  but  to  feed  tastes  which  lie  deep  within. 
Uncultivated  men  in  civilized  society  begin  to  have  affectional 
wants.  They  begin  to  have  refinements.  They  begin  to  have 
aspirations.  When  a  degraded  peasant  comes  to  America,  creep- 
ing out  of  his  turf  hole  at  home,  he  is  quite  willing  to  nuzzle  again 
in  the  dirt  in  America ;  but  becoming  more  familiar  Avith  things 
around  about  him,  and'  buying  a  little  piece. of  ground,  he  settles 
down  in  a  village,  and  his  ideas  begin  to  enlarge.  He  sees  what  his 
neighbors  children  are ;  and  as  his  own  children  increase  abont 
him  he  has  a  pride  and  ambition  for  them.  He  is  discontented  with 
his  one  room,  and  wants  more  rooms.  He  begins  to  want  a  floor. 
He  begins  to  want  a  place  to  sleep  in  which  is  not  a  kitchen.  He 
begins  to  want  something  finer  on  his  bed.  He  is  no  longer  satisfied 
with  straw.  A  box  does  not  seem  to  him  good  as  a  table  any 
longer.  It  makes  a  diSerence  to  him  whether  he  cuts  his  food  with 
a  jack-knife,  or  eats  with  a  knife  and  fork.  He  sees  the  difference 
between  his  and  other  people's  manner  of  spreading  the  table.  His 
taste  developes.  He  covets  things  for  their  beauty.  He  has  other 
desires  than  those  which  the  senses  feed,  higher,  purer,  finer.  And 
what  do  these  things  indicate  but  the  development  of  finer  relishes 
and  appetites  in  him  ?    He  comes,  gradually,  to  a  state  in  which 


194  SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

he  is  pained  by  things  which  ten  years  ago  were  matters  of  indif- 
ference to  him. 

This  is  right.  It  is  a  sign  of  growth.  There  is  a  sense  in  which 
the  whole  condition  of  the  globe  is  elevated  when  men  manifest  a 
desire  for  greater  leisure.  The  desire  for  leisure  is  a  worthy  desire 
when  it  is  inspired  by  an  ambition  for  culture  in  order  that  there 
may  be  a  fuller  development  of  manhood.  I  honor  a  man  who  can- 
not forever  live  in  the  presence  of  men  who  are  higher  than  he  and 
not  desire  to  rise  higher  himself.  I  do  not  mean  that  a  poor  man 
should  desire  to  live  in  a  four-story  brown-stone  house  with  the 
"  modern  conveniences,"  because  there  are  men  around  about  him 
who  live  in  such  houses ;  but  if  a  man  is  living  in  a  community 
where  there  are  those  who  have  finer  tastes  and  feelings  than  he  has, 
he  has  a  right  to  desire  those  tastes  and  feelings ;  and  he  has  a 
right  to  say  to  himself,  "  Give  me  time  enough,  and  I  can  develop 
them  in  myself — or  in  my  children,  if  not  in  myself"  I  honor  a 
man  who  has  an  ambition  to  groAV.  I  glory  in  that  growth  which 
crowds  off  the  leaves  of  last  year  in  order  that  there  may  be  de- 
veloped a  new  and  better  crop  on  every  branch  this  year. 

Then  there  is  another  thing  which  I  mark  as  peculiar  to  large 
towns  and  cities,  and  which  is  as  true  of  this  city  as  of  others.  I 
refer  to  the  irregularity  of  progress,  the  partialism  of  progress, 
which  may  be  seen  by  those  who  will  observe  it.  There  is  in  almost 
every  community  a  separation  going  on  in  society.  This  separa- 
tion is  becoming  more  and  more  apparent.  The  distance  is  becom- 
ing wider  in  every  decade  of  years  between  the  cultured  and  the 
uncultured ;  between  the  rich  and  the  poor ;  between  the  different 
sections  of  society.  The  top  goes  up  all  the  time  faster  than  the 
bottom  does.  The  distance  between  the  top  of  society  and  the 
bottom  measures  the  unhealth  of  society.  The  top  cannot  healthily 
go  up  unless  it  takes  the  bottom  with  it.  At  first,  when  men 
are  undeveloped,  they  may  all  live  together,  and  may  be  in  fellow- 
ship, though  they  may  be  low ;  but  as  they  begin  to  be  stimulated 
and  developed,  good  men  go  higher  than  bad  men ;  educated  men 
go  higher  than  uneducated  men ;  skilled  men  go  higher  than  un- 
skilled men ;  but  they  still  have  a  duty  of  fellowship  and  brother- 
hood. Every  man  ought  to  be  solicitous  of  his  own  development ; 
but  every  man  should  also  be  solicitous  to  draw  up  those  who  are 
around  about  him.  The  business  of  any  class  is  not  to  help  them- 
selves alone,  but  to  help  all  other  classes.  As  men  begin  to  be  re- 
fined, you  will  see  evolving  out  of  their  new  condition  a  gradual  de- 
velopment of  the  pride  of  refinement,  and  the  selfishness  of  refine- 
ment, and  the  fastidiousness  of  refinement,  and  the  revulsion  oi 


SIGNS  OF  TEH  TIMES.  195 

refinement  at  those  vulgarities  which  characterize  the  great  mass  of 
their  fellow  men.  Men  in  society  organize,  stratify  and  divide; 
the  bottom  remains  at  the  bottom,  and  perhaps  sinks  lower,  while 
the  top  shoots  upward. 

Society  is  not  and  cannot  be  homogeneous.  There  are  causes  for- 
ever at  work  to  produce  classes.  If  the  classes  are  in  mutual  an- 
tagonism, society  is  full  of  intestine  Avar.  If  society  is  a  unit,  like 
the  human  body,  made  up  of  superior  and  inferior  members,  but 
all  in  vital  sympathy  with  each  other,  and  all  serving  a  common 
end,  then  no  harm,  but  much  good  may  result  from  classes.  The 
mischief  begins  with  class  indiflference,  proceeds  with  class  selfish- 
ness, and  is  consummated  in  class  despotism.  Even  those  influences 
which,  like  intelligence  and  religion,  tend  to  bring  men  together, 
when  they  act  upon  only  a  portion  of  society,  produce  inequality 
and  relative  disturbance. 

Anything,  then,  that  shall  work  up  the  great  mass  of  men  from 
a  state  of  indiflference  or  torpidity,  and  which  shall  teach  them  in- 
dustry, self-government,  cooperation,  patient  striving  and  waiting 
for  a  better  condition,  will  tend  to  their  benefit  and  to  that  of  so- 
ciety at  large.  That  cannot  be  a  healthy  condition  in  which  a  few 
prosper  and  the  great  mass  are  drudges. 

Then  I  must  call  your  attention  to  another  great  danger — 
namely,  the  increasing  power  of  organized  and  combined  capital  in 
our  land,  and  the  despotism  which  tends  to  grow  out  of  it.  There 
is  probably  no  other  nation  where  there  is  so  much  wealth  per  head 
as  there  is  in  the  great  northern  tier  of  States  in  America;  aud 
there  is  no  other  nation  where  the  capacity  to  make  wealth  is  so 
great  as  here. 

I  do  not  mean  that  there  is  not  sagacity  and  skill  in  England, 
or  in  France,  or  in  Germany,  or  in  Italy.  We  have  much  to  learn 
from  these  nations.  They  surpass  us  in  many  things.  We  are  in- 
debted to  them  for  what  they  are  teaching  us  in  various  depart 
mentsof  industry.  But  taking  the  populations  through,  the  wealth- 
earning  power  of  the  industrial  citizenship  of  America  probably 
transcends  that  of  the  citizenship  of  any  other  nation  on  the  globe. 
While  the  best  workmen  of  other  nations  may  surpass  those  of 
America,  taking  all  the  working  men  of  America  together,  there  is 
no  other  land  in  the  world  which  is  so  productive  of  wealth  as  ours. 

We  are  not  only  producing  wealth  but  we  are  increasing  it  at 
a  fearful  ratio  in  the  hands  of  a  comparatively  few.  You  have 
seen,  many  of  you,  and  I  have  seen  (for  I  have  lived  through  a 
generation  of  men),  almost  a  revolution  in  the  matter  of  wealth. 
When  I  was  born,  and  where  I  was  born,  a  man  that  was  worth  ten 


196  SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

thousand  dollars  was  a  rich  man.  He  that  was  worth  fifty 
thousand  dollars  was  looked  up  to  as  very  rich.  I  remember 
when  a  man  who  had  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  considered 
surpassingly  rich.  But  a  man  that  has  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars to-day,  says,  "I  have  some  yeast,  and  if  I  could  get  some 
dough  to  put  it  in  I  think  I  could  raise  a  batch  of  wealth.*' 
A  man  is  not  looked  upon  as  rich  until  he  has  many  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars.  It  is  easier  nowadays  to  find  a  man  that  is 
worth  a  million  dollars  than  in  my  day  it  was  to  find  a  man  that 
was  worth  a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  is  not  strange  to  find 
men  who  are  worth  five  or  ten  millions.  There  are  some  men 
who  are  worth  fifty  millions,  and  even  a  hundred  millions.  Tliere 
are  not  a  few  in  our  cities  wlio  are  millionaires,  literally ;  and  the 
number  is  increasing.  They  do  not  all  like  to  have  it  known. 
They  do  not  all  show  their  wealth.  There  is  a  Nemesis  of  taxation 
which  makes  many  men  humble,  so  that  they  do  not  like  to  have  it 
known  how  much  they  are  worth. 

Such  is  the  power  of  Wealth,  that  when  held  by  a  class,  and  used 
ambitiously,  it  becomes  as  despotic  as  an  Absolute  Monarchy.  An 
ambitious  Plutocracy  has  in  its  hands,  I  had  almost  said,  manners, 
customs,  laws,  institutions,  and  governments  themselves. 

But,  over  and  above  all  these  inequalities  which  work  mischief  to 
the  less  favored  classes  in  society,  there  is  one  danger  of  Wealth 
that  demands  the  serious  attention  of  every  patriotic  citizen.  I 
mean  the  alarming  increase  of  enormous  wealth  in  gigantic  Cor- 
porations. 

Consider  the  capital  in  the  hands  of  a  few  men  represented  by 
the  New  York  Central  and  Hudson  Eiver  Eailroad.  "  Their  line 
has  gone  out  into  all  the  world."  It  owns  or  can  control  hundreds 
of  millions  of  capital.  Its  dependants  are  an  army.  Its  contracts, 
by  the  promise  of  gain,  hold  under  cogent  influence  all  who  deal 
in  wood,  iron,  wool,  stone,  oil,  machinery,  and  general  merchandise. 
This  huge  capital,  in  the  hands  of  one  or  a  few  men,  can  build 
up  or  beat  down ;  can  enrich  or  impoverish  whom  it  will.  At  its 
touch  gold  becomes  ashes  and  dirt  becomes  gold.  The  Erie  Rail- 
road, of  fragrant  memory,  has  a  power  scarcely  less.  The  State  of 
New  York  is  shut  in  between  these  iron  walls.  Hanging  over  the 
State  is  this  enormous  body  of  coi-porate  wealth,  subject  to  the  will 
of  a  handful  of  men,  and  growing  in  amount,  facilities,  and  dan- 
gerousucss,  every  year.  The  Pennsylvania  Central,  with  its  arms 
and  hands  stretched  out  to  the  very  Pacific  Ocean,  is  liable  to  be 
an  even  more  gigantic  Despot. 

I  do  not  lose  sight  of  the  benefits  conferred  on  the  com- 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  197 

munity  by  these  great  thoroughfares.  Kept  witliin  rightful  bounds, 
their  service  to  public  wealth  is  incalculable.  They  are  wings  and 
feet  to  commerce.  They  stimulate  a  universal  industry.  They  bring 
near  together  the  widely  separated  populations  of  this  continent : 
they  give  coherence  and  unity  to  scattered  industries;  by  their 
swiftness,  they  in  eflfect  add  hours  to  every  man's  days,  and  substan- 
tially lengthen  human  life  by  doubling  the  product  of  men's  hands. 
But,  out  of  these  great  and  unmeasured  blessings,  there  rises  up 
this  danger  of  Corporate  Power, — like  a  mountain  out  of  fruitful 
fields,  about  whose  head  storms  tread.  Such  concentration  of  cajDi- 
tal  gives  to  a  few  men,  acting  in  concert,  a  power  of  influence 
which  can  crush  down  all  ordinary  opposition  and  make  them  mas- 
ters of  the  legislation  of  the  country. 

Acting  through  the  directories  of  two  or  three  Kailroads,  the 
money  power  of  America  may  set  at  defiance  all  control,  and 
dictate  to  legislatures  the  laws,  and  to  the  people  their  policies. 
The  more  because  our  legislatures  have  become  so  corrupt.  The 
shame  of  America,  to-day,  is  the  corruption  of  legislative  bodies.  In 
many  States  of  the  Union  money  has  become  a  controlling  influence 
in  the  passage  of  laws ;  politics  is  next  in  power,  and  simple  justice 
for  its  own  sake,  is  something  almost  unknown.  Even  the  men 
elected  for  the  purpose  of  reforming  such  abuse,  no  sooner  breathe 
the  moral  malaria  of  the  legislative  halls  than  virtue  is  in  chills  and 
avarice  in  a  fever.  Why  do  we  think  so  ill  of  Sing  Sing  and  so  well 
of  Albany  ?  In  what  are  the  thieves  in  the  Penitentiary  worse  than 
the  thieves  in  the  Legislature  ?  The  rogues  in  prison,  acting  with 
but  little  concert,  robbed  individuals,  and  firms ;  the  organized 
rogues,  in  legislative  clothing,  dishonestly,  in  the  habiliments  of  law, 
rob  the  whole  community. 

Are  these  bodies,  from  whom  come  all  our  laws,  likely  to  resist 
the  temptations  of  vast  corporations  who  carry  gold  mines  in  their 
cofiiers  ?  Will  those  who  make  their  bed  in  the  very  dirt  of  the 
streets,  refuse  the  bed  of  kings  ?  Have  our  courts  been  able  to  with- 
stand the  assaults  of  money  corporations  ?  Even  when  judges  are 
inaccessible  to  pecuniary  bribes,  they  are  unable  to  Avith stand  the 
wear  and  tear  of  political  influence,  the  enthusiasms  of  public  senti- 
ment hotly  kindled.  Neither  courts  or  legislatures  can  interpose 
a  barrier  to  the  will  of  corporative  wealth,  when  it  assumes  the  vast 
proportions  it  has  now  taken,  and  when  it  grasps  such  a  variety  of 
interests  and  such  a  scope  of  territory !  There  are  three  Eailroad 
corporations  that  have  the  power, — should  they  combine,  as  easily 
they  might,  as  in  time  inevitably  they  must, — to  control  national 
parties,  to  determine  the  commercial  policy,  to  dictate  legislation, 


198  SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES. 

to  elect  governors  or  depose  them  to  place  whom  they  will  in  the 
Presidential  chair,  to  fill  the  United  States  Senate  with  their  friends, 
and  to  pack  the  House  of  Eepresentatives.  Let  things  go  on  for  ten 
years  as  they  have  for  the  past  twenty,  and  the  councils  of  this  nation 
will  issue  from  the  directors'  rooms  of  our  great  Eailroad  Corpora- 
tions. It  will  make  no  difference  who  sits  in  the  White  House. 
Some  Vanderbilt  or  Scott  will  be  our  President. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  the  remedy  for  these  evils,  already 
so  great,  but  whose  future  is  yet  more  portentous,  is  to  be  found 
in  anything  yet  developed  among  working  men.  And  yet  to  the 
great  laboring  interests  of  the  country  must  we  look  for  an  antago- 
nism which  will  at  length  restrain  the  overreaching  ambition  of 
cooperative  capital.  Mammon  is  our  chief  adversary  to-day.  Many 
thought  that  when  slavery  was  overthrown  the  devils  had  gone  out 
of  the  nation.  Nay,  they  only  changed  quarters,  and  as  yet  no 
steep  place  has  been  found  down  which  the  infernal  brood  has 
rushed  to  destruction.  Mammon,  enthroned  in  privilege,  is  our 
danger  and  our  despot.  Capital  may,  if  wisely  used,  overhang  the 
land  like  beneficent  clouds,  dropping  down  bounty  upon  every  leaf 
and  blade  that  grows;  or,  it  may  hang  above  us  surcharged  with 
lightning,  and  move  like  a  destroying  storm. 

If  the  poor  see  that  riches  set  men  free  from  the  law,  obedience 
to  the  law  will  be  regarded  as  one  more  evil  inflicted  by  poverty. 
Why  should  Work  be  under  law,  and  Crime  be  above  law  ?  Men 
often  complain  of  the  lawless  violence  of  ignorant  men ;  of  the 
turbulence  and  violence  of  the  lower  classes ;  of  the  evils  to  be 
feared  in  the  " dangerous  classes."  But  our  "dangerous  class"  is 
not  at  the  bottom,  it  is  near  the  top  of  society.  Riches  without 
law  is  more  dangerous  than  Poverty  without  law.  While  Labor 
organizes  to  defend  itself  against  the  exactions  of  Capital,  it  may 
raise  up  a  power  which  shall  defend  the  whole  community,  and, 
while  it  ennobles  industry,  shall,  at  the  same  time,  establish  mo- 
rality. The  laboring  men  will  always  be  the  majority.  If  they  are 
educated,  temperate,  wise,  they  will  control  the  destiny  of  the  na- 
tion. It  is  to  them  that  we  look  in  the  future. 
"~  My  heart  goes  with  the  toiling  million.  The  wise  and  strong 
need  no  sympathy.  Their  strengtli  is  their  defense.  They  are 
grown  up  men.  But  the  great  mass  of  working  men  are  relatively 
weak.  They  need  sympathy.  Mine  is  not  an  undistinguishing  sym- 
pathy, however;  I  do  not  pretend  that  poverty  is  virtue,  nor  that 
riches  are  criminal.  I  have  no  vulgar  ends  to  gain  by  flattering  the 
working  man.  On  the  other  hand,  I  shall  show  a  better  friendship, 
a  wiser  sympathy,  if  I  criticise  the  mistakes  of  their  organizations. 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  199 

and  point  out  some  of  those  principles  to  which  they  must  conform, 
if  permanent  prosperity  is  to  be  had. 

1.  There  is  danger  that  laboring  men,  in  combining  for  mutual 
protection,  will  organize  around  the  core  of  selfishness.  This  will 
be  to  imitate  the  very  evil  which  makes  corporate  wealth  danger- 
ous. It  will  have  the  inherent  and  essential  mischief  of  the  class- 
spirit.  Selfishness  is  the  bane  of  life.  It  will  be  no  less  destructive 
and  dishonoring  among  laboring  men,  than  among  capitalists.  If 
the  workingmen  care  nothing  for  the  whole  community,  but  only 
or  chiefly  for  themselves,  they  will  deserve  no  sympathy.  Each 
trade  may  have  a  special  benevolence  for  its  own  members,  but  the 
whole  is  more  important  than  any  fraction,  and  the  common- 
wealth should  be  included  in  the  intents  and  purposes  of  work- 
men's plans.  If  labor  is  to  fight  capital  by  a  rivalry  in  selfishness 
then  society  will  be  but  a  carcass  lying  between  the  vultures.  Labor 
must  be  more  manly,  more  robust  in  virtue,  more  patriotic,  more 
public  spirited,  and  more  intelligent  than  organized  capital,  or  it 
will  go  down 'in  the  conflict.  It  is  this  rising  and  extending  sym- 
pathy between  men  of  different  trades,  and  between  the  working- 
men  of  different  nations,  that  inspires  our  sympathy  and  our  hope 
that  labor  may  bring  classes  and  nations  into  sympathy  and  coop- 
eration, which  have  hitherto  been  discordant  or  oppugnant. 

2.  Workingmen  are  in  danger  of  spending  their  force  in  follow- 
ing glittering  social  theories.  Certainly,  they  have  as  much  right 
to  speculate  as  any  others.  But  no  degree  of  intelligence  will  ever 
enable  any  class  or  individual  to  forecast  the  shape  of  society  in  the 
future.  The  world  has  its  own  law  of  development,  and  society 
will  make  its  own  paths,  refusing  all  speculative  lines  that  may  be 
drawn  to  coax  it.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  clubs,  unions,  leagues, 
and  societies  should  waste  their  forces  in  propagating  airy  fancies ; 
in  building  society-castles  in  the  air.  Society  takes  its  shape  from 
what  men  are  and  not  from  what  they  think.  Industry,  ingenuity, 
intelligence,  frugality,  genuine  kindness  between  man  and  man, 
self-restraint;  in  short,  brain-power  in  the  superior  faculties,  this 
is  the  raw  material  out  of  which  God  will  shape  that  better  Future 
for  which  we  all  long.  We  can  provide  the  materials,  but  God  is 
the  only  Architect. 

3.  Men  are  in  danger  of  regarding  Work  as  an  evil,  and  Leisure 
as  an  end,  in  itself.  Labor  is  a  salable  commodity.  To  raise  the 
price  of  it  by  legitimate  means  is  fair  and  wise.  But  it  will  be  a 
supreme  folly  for  poor  men  to  decrease  the  quantity  of  labor  in  the 
community.  While  here  and  there  a  few  men  are  overworked,  the 
great  mass  of  men  do  not  work  enough.    What  we  want  is  freedom 


200  S?IGN8  OF  THE  TIMES. 

of  men  to  work,  to  work  as  long  as  tliey  will,  and  to  sell  tlieir  labor 
in  the  best  market.  Odious  as  is  the  despotism  of  Capital,  it  is  not 
a  whit  more  odious  than  Labor-despotism.  Freedom  is  the  univer- 
sal need  of  men  ; — freedom  of  conscience,  freedom  in  thought,  civil 
freedom ;  liberty  of  speech,  of  vote,  of  work ;  restraint  upon  the 
animal,  but  liberty  to  the  divine,  that  is  in  man ! 

For  special  reasons,  and  as  a  temporary  expedient  to  gain  some 
eminent  good,  men  may  curtail  labor  and  restrain  their  liberties. 
But  this  must  be  the  occasional,  and  not  the  permanent — medi- 
cine, not  food. 

4.  There  is  danger,  too,  that  the  working  men  will  be  godless  and 
irreligious,  and  therefore  shallow  and  narrow.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  the  cooperative  labor  of  the  world  shall  be  Protestant,  or  Catho- 
lic; it  is  not  necessary  that  it  shall  join  itself  to  this  or  that  sect; 
but  Labor  is  absolutely  incomplete  without  a  deep  moral  sense.  If 
labor  becomes  atheistic,  unchristian,  antagonistic  to  the  great  truths 
of  the  gospel,  it  will  commit  suicide. 

Jesus  Christ  was  a  laborer's  son,  after  the  flesh,  and  was  himself 
a  carpenter,  and  wrought  with  his  hands,  and  lived  all  his  life  in 
sympathy  with  the  laboring  classes  of  his  people ;  and  all  the  truths 
breathed  from  his  lips  were  truths  of  sympathy  and  humanity  which 
it  behooves  every  working  man  on  earth  to  take  heed  to.  The 
gospel  of  Christ  is  the  poor  man's  Magna  Charta.  If  poor  men 
who  are  disfranchised,  and  who  are  seeking  to  reinstate  themselves, 
and  gain  room  for  aspiration  and  growth,  reject  the  Bible,  and  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  truths  that  came  from  him,  they  throw 
away  the  charter  of  their  liberty.  There  never  was  a  stable  liberty 
born  into  this  world  until  after  Christ  had  shown  the  way.  For 
liberty  must  be  based  upon  that  benevolence  which  shall  expunge 
selfishness  from  supreme  control.  You  never  will  have  ripe  justice 
until  you  have  that  which  springs  out  of  filial  love  to  God  and 
impartial  love  to  man. 

5.  There  is  a  danger,  too,  that  these  cooperative  associations  will 
set  aside  the  great  law  of  subordination.  You  cannot  by  legislation 
bring  all  men  up  to  an  equality.  Thei-e  are  certain  great  laws 
which  are  as  inevitable  as  fate.  You  can  make  all  men  equal  to 
each  other  politically ;  you  can  make  all  men  equal  before  the  law ; 
you  can  make  all  men  equal  in  riglits  and  duties ;  but  you  cannot 
make  all  men  equal  in  their  earuing-power.  It  is  a  species  of  rank 
injustice  to  undertake  to  strike  an  equality  between  one  class  and 
another.  If  you  make  the  wages  of  a  weak  and  ignorant  man  the 
same  as  the  wages  of  a  strong  and  wise  man,  you  do  that  which  is 
fundamentally  unjust.     It  is  not  a  kindness  but  an  injury.     It  is 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  201 

demoralizing.  It  disregards  a  distinction  which  God  made,  and 
which  will  always  continue  to  exist.  It  takes  away  the  stimulus  to 
development  and  industry.  If  men  find  that  the  indolent  and 
the  industrious  are  treated  alike,  that  the  finest  and  the  highest 
workers  and  the  slovenliest  and  lowest  workers  are  rewarded  alike — 
are  graded  to  the  same  price — there  is  taken  away  from  them  the 
fundamental  motive  by  which  manhood  is  stirred  up,  and  in- 
genuity is  quickened,  and  industry  is  developed.  It  destroys  in- 
dividualism. It  leads  toward  that  consolidation  of  society  in  whicu 
the  nation  is  everything  and  the  individual  citizen  nothing. 

6.  Nothing  can  more  directly  benefit  laboring  men  than  that  de- 
velopment which  education  gives.  For,  besides  the  range  of  re- 
sources, the  new  pleasures,  the  larger  susceptibility  to  enjoyment 
which  education  gives,  it  significantly  influences  the  price  which 
labor  brings.  For,  he  who  sells  work  sells  brains.  Price  is  largely, 
and  as  a  general  rule,  determined  by  the  quality  and  quantity  of 
thought-power  infused  into  work.  "  Skilled  work"  is  nothing  but 
work  vitalized  by  finer  brain-power  than  belongs  to  routine  work. 
Every  workman  sells  something  of  himself  in  what  he  creates. 
Skill,  fidelity,  taste,  imagination,  bring  high  prices.  What  work- 
men need  most  of  all  is  education.  They  do  not  know  how  to  use 
the  half  of  their  powers.  Their  qualities  lie  in  them  undug,  un- 
smelted,  uncast,  unfinished.  They  bring  to  market  the  products 
of  their  lower  faculties,  and  murmur  that  the  price  is  low.  Let 
them  improve  their  loom  and  the  fabrics  will  rise  in  value.  The 
workman's  head  is  his  shop.  If  there  be  fpw  tools  there  and  poor 
ones,  why  should  he  expect  profit? 

A  thing  is  worth  what  that  part  of  the  brain  is  worth 
which  entered  into  the  creating  of  it.  A  thing  which  requires 
the  action  of  the  lowest  part  of  the  brain  is  not  worth  much. 
It  does  not  take  much  brain-power  to  dig  a  ditch.  Anybody 
can  throw  out  dirt ;  and  should  a  man  who  throws  out  dirt  be 
paid  as  much  as  a  man  who  organizes  dirt,  and  finds  new  uses  for 
it  ?  If  you  put  into  your  Avork  the  lowest  part  of  your  brain,  you 
take  the  lowest  price;  if  you  put  into  it  the  middle  part  of  your 
brain  you  take  the  middle  price ;  and  if  you  put  in  the  highest 
part  you  take  the  highest  price.  There  is  a  gradation  fixed  in  the 
nature  of  things.  It  is  a  priiiciple  which  enters  into  the  organiza- 
tion of  society,  that  the  bottom  of  a  man  is  not  worth  so  much  as 
the  top,  and  if  a  man  puts  his  bottom  forces  into  liis  work  his  work 
is  not  Avorth  so  much  as  if  he  put  his  top  forces  into  it.  To  the 
end  of  time  the  artist  will  be  worth  more  than  tlie  artisan,  the  arti- 
san will  be  worth  more  than  the  laborer,  and  the  laborer  will  be 
worth  more  than  the  drudge. 


202  SIQJ^S  OF  TEE  TIMES. 

One  remedy  for  the  disadvantages  from  wliich  labor  is  suffering, 
is  to  educate  men  ;  to  teach  them  how  to  work ;  to  teach  them  how 
to  think,  and  how  to  think  finely,  and  generously,  and  wisely,  and 
beneficently,  and  religiously,  as  creatures  whose  sphere  is  bounded, 
not  by  this  horizon,  but  by  God's  horizon.  What  men  need  is 
more  manhood,  and  a  better  understanding  of  that  in  them  by 
which  they  are  to  put  into  their  work  more  substance,  more  quality, 
more  honesty,  more  fidelity,  and  more  adaptation  to  a  final  happi- 
ness, to  a  higher  life,  and  to  nobler  tastes.  Everything  which  tends 
to  bring  the  nobler  parts  of  men,  as  embodiments,  into  their  work; 
everythiug^that  tends  to  lift  up  men's  work  to  a  higher  standard, 
is  an  element  in  the  solution  of  this  great  question  of  labor.  And 
no  combination  or  invention  can  stop  the  operation  of  Nature's 
decree  in  this  matter.  The  stream  may  be  checked  in  its  course  by 
banks  and  dams,  but  these  will  be  only  temporary  obstructions ; 
for  in  the  end  the  law  is  inevitable  that  it  is  the  brain  that  gives 
value,  and  that  it  is  quality  or  kind  of  brain  that  determines  prices. 
He  who  takes  the  contrary  view  is  in  insurrection  with  the  law  of 
Nature,  and  is  in  the  same  condition  that  a  man  would  be  in  who 
should  enter  into  a  conspiracy  against  gravity,  or  electricity,  or 
light,  or  any  other  great  force  in  Nature. 

We  are  in  the  midst  of  this  experiment,  and  we  ought  to  be  pa- 
tient with  it.  We  ought  not  to  think  that  it  is  going  to  corrupt 
society,  and  destroy  us.  There  is  much  in  the  movements  of  laboring 
men  to  be  criticised.  They  are  men  who  are  feeling  their  way  toward  a 
larger  life,  toward  a  nobler  manhood;  and  I  say,  "  God  speed  them." 
At  the  same  time  1  make  criticisms  upon  them ;  but  I  make  them  for 
their  good  and  health,  and  not  for  their  harm  and  hindrance.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  our  duty  to  look  more  to  the  welfare  of  others, 
and  not  so  exclusively  to  our  own  welfare.  We  who  live  in  led 
houses,  not  thinking  so  much  how  we  shall  have  good  as  how  we 
shall  have  better ;  not  thinking  so  much  how  we  shall  have  better 
as  how  we  shall  have  the  best;  and  not  thinking  so  much  how  we 
shall  have  the  best  as  how  we  shall  have  it  more  abundantly — we 
are  to  ask  ourselves,  in  spinning  our  silken  web  about  us,  "  Are  we 
discharging  those  duties  which  unite  us  in  sympathy  with  the  great 
mass  of  men  that  are  about  us  ?" 

We,  by  our  extravagance,  squeeze  the  merchant,  and  compel  him 
in  turn  to  squeeze  the  manufacturer,  who  in  turn  squeezes  the  la- 
borer. The  impulse  which  our  extravagance  sets  in  motion  acts 
with  terrible  violence,  and  grinds  our  poor  brother  to  powder;  and 
if,  indignant,  he  turns,  not  knowing  what  to  fight,  and  fights  every- 
thing that  stands  in  his  way  between  the  top  and  the  bottom  of 


SIGNS  OF  TEE  TIMES.  203 

society,  it  is  not  for  us  to  throw  stones  at  him,  who  have  been  the 
cause  and  occasion  of  his  offense.  It  is  for  us,  rather,  to  come  into 
the  large  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  who  descended  from  the 
height  of  heaven  to  live  among  men,  made  himself  a  servant,  and, 
even  when  he  sat  at  the  feasts  of  the  great  men  who  opened  their 
houses  to  him,  so  recognized  his  relations  to  the  poorest  in  society, 
that  the  publicans  and  sinners  thronged  in  after  him,  and  sat  at 
meat  with  him  unrebuked.  He  is  your  Master.  By  his  name  you 
are  called.  Have  you  his  spirit  ?  And  when  men  Avho  are  low 
down,  struggling,  unfortunate,  undeveloped,  rude,  ignorant,  unre- 
fined— when  they  see  you,  do  they  press  after  you,  and  take  you  by 
the  hand,  and  find  in  your  heart  a  fraternizing  response? 

There  are  duties  in  many  directions  in  society — a  duty  in  eccle- 
dasticism,  a  duty  in  sociology,  a  duty  of  philanthropy,  and  other 
duties — which  couple  us  Avith  the  working  classes  of  our  time  and 
nation ;  and  we  shall  not  discharge  these  duties  unless  we  discern 
the  signs  of  the  times,  and  hold  out  efficient  help  and  succor  to  those 
who  are  our  brothers  and  friends  underneath  our  feet. 

So,  I  say,  May  God  keep  you  from  the  cultivation  of  selfish  re- 
finement. May  God  keep  you  from  the  exquisite  cruelty  of  religious 
selfishness.  May  God  keep  you  from  the  infidelity  and  atheism  of 
indifference  toward  those  around  about  you  who  are  bone  of  your 
bone  and  flesh  of  your  flesh.  May  God  breathe  into  you  the  sweet 
spirit  of  his  own  dear  Son,  who  gave  his  life  a  ransom  for  many,  and 
teach  you  to  use  your  life  so  that  it  shall  be  a  ransom,  and  emanci- 
pate and  bring  up  many  who  are  cast  down  or  oppressed  in  your 
midst 


204  SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES. 


PKAYER  BEFORE  THE   SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  thank  thee  for  the  mercies  of  the  day.  That  our  prayers 
have  been  heard;  that  the  spirit  of  the  Sabbath  has  been  upon  us;  for  quiet 
in  our  homes,  and  in  our  several  abiding  places;  for  meditation;  for  all 
social  fellowship;  for  our  joys  to  come  in  the  Lord;  for  our  forelooking ; 
for  our  sight  within  the  veil, — we  thank  thee.  We  rejoice  that  we  fall  under 
the  influence  of  thy  Spirit;  that  we  are  not  citizens  of  any  mean  country  or 
city;  that  we  are  more  than  we  seem;  that  we  are  the  sons  of  God,  though  it 
dotli  not  appear;  that  we  are  journeying  through  the  Tvilderaess — if  it  be  a 
wilderness;  that  we  are  aspiring  to  a  nobler  life,  to  a  better  home,  to 
imperishable  riches,  to  honors  that  corrupt  not  society,  and  whose  pleasures 
do  not  effeminate;  that  we  are  drawing  near  to  that  liigher  and  better 
sphere  where  we  shall  see  thee  as  thou  art,  and  know  even  as  we  are 
known. 

But  grant,  we  pray  thee,  while  we  comfort  ourselves  by  the  way,  looking 
forward,  and  by  imagination  partaking  of  the  heavenly  estate,  that  we  may 
not  retreat  from  the  conflicts  of  this  life,  from  its  duties,  from  its  necessary 
burdens.  Grant  that  we  may  have  manhood;  and  that  we  may  have 
robust  patience ;  and  that  we  may  accept  at  the  hand  of  the  Lord  that 
which  he  shall  send,  grateful  for  mercies.  May  we  not  seek  to  avoid  even 
chastisements.  May  we  rejoice  in  prosperity,  and  may  we  not  refuse  to 
receive  adversity.  May  we  bear  the  yoke  willingly.  May  we  learn  that 
thy  yoke  is  easy,  and  that  thy  bvirden  is  light,  and  accept  them  uncomplain- 
ingly. Why  should  we  complain,  who  are  disciples,  when  our  Lord  and 
Master  suffered  for  us?  Why  should  we  complain  who  are  but  lor  a  day 
here,  and  who  are  to  advance  to  an  eternal  glory  of  blessedness  hereafter? 
Oh,  grant  that  we  may  see  ourselves,  not  as  within  the  horizon  of  time,  but 
as  creatures  of  immortality ;  and  that  we  may  temper  our  joy  and  sorrow ; 
that  we  may  restrain  ourselves,  both  in  prosperity  and  adversity,  by  the 
thought  of  our  relations  to  thee  and  to  the  whole  future  life  I 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  forgive  us  the  sins  of  impatience,  and  pride,  and 
anger,  and  selfishness,  and  envy,  and  jealousy,  and  all  passions  and  appe- 
tites. We  pray  that  thou  wilt  forgive  us  all  the  tnings  which  it  was  our 
duty  to  do,  and  which  we  have  left  undone. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  inspire  us  with  a  higher  conception  of  manhood 
and  duty ;  and  day  by  day  may  we  be  diligent  in  business  and  fervent  in 
spirit,  serving  the  Lord.  And  we  pray  that  we  may  not  be  so  wrapped  up 
with  thinking  of  our  own  perfection  and  the  advancement  of  our  own 
spiritual  purity  and  joy  that  we  shall  forget  our  brotherhood  with  those 
who  are  around  about  us — with  the  suffering,  the  ignorant,  the  poor,  and 
the  needy.  Grant  that  everywhere  our  he&rts  may  be  open  to  the  wants  of 
our  fellow  men;  that  wo  may  be  in  sympathy  with  those  who  are  unlike  us 
in  condition ;  that  we  may  be  under  obligation  to  all  that  are  around  about 
us;  that  we  may  be  like  the  Master  who  went  about  doing  good  to  the 
despised,  to  the  outcast,  to  the  neglected. 

Graut  that  more  and  more  the  hearts  of  this  great  people  may  be  united 
together  in  the  bonds  of  a  more  perfect  charity.  May  all  the  causes  of  dis- 
turbance and  separation  and  animosity  and  opposition  be  taken  out  of 
our  midst.  We  pray  for  that  indwelling  Spirit  which  shall  bring  light,  and 
which  shall  kindle  a  fire  by  which  the  dross  shall  be  consumed  and  the  gold 
purified.  We  pray  for  that  which  shall  unite  all  hearts  together  in  this 
great  land.  Oh,  forbid  that  wo  shoul.l  be  divided  and  scattered!  Forbid 
that  anything  should  dim  the  prosperity  of  this  people.  And  may  that 
prosperity  spring,  not  from  lordliness,  nor  arrogant  power,  nor  overswoilen 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES.  205 

riches:  may  it  spring,  rather,  from  temperateness,  from  self-restraint, 
from  the  power  of  godliness,  from  liberty  and  intelligence,  and  good- will, 
and  the  welfare  of  all. 

And  we  pray  that  this  nation  may  be  nourished  by  a  true  Christianity, 
so  that  all  men  shall  look  upon  us  and  long  ior  the  same  power  which  we 
possess,  and  serve  the  same  Christ,  and  rejoice  in  the  same  prosperity.  Work 
in  this  great  peoi^le,  we  beseech  of  thee,  to  will  and  to  do  of  thy  good  pleasure. 

And  now,  we  pray  that  in  times  of  excitement  and  division  and  con- 
troversy, our  hearts  may  be  held  temperately;  that  we  may  look  upon  all 
things  as  iuthe  hght  of  thy  countenance;  that  we  may  not  be  carried  away 
violently  by  prejudice,  uor  be  filled  with  anger.  May  we  witti  patience 
possess  our  spirit  in  all  godliness  and  gentleness  one  toward  another. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thy  cause  may  prosper  in  the  midst  of  this 
nation.  And  so  let  thy  word  be  fulfilled.  How  long  shall  the  nations  sit  in 
darkness?  How  long  shall  the  people  be  in  ignorance  ?  How  long  shall  the 
poor  abide  in  their  poverty?  How  long  shall  the  outcast  and  neglected 
remain  outcast  and  neglected  ?  Oh,  that  thou  wouldst  stir  up  the  whole  of 
thy  people.  Descend  to  overturn  and  overturn  till  He  whose  right  it  is 
shall  come  and  reign ! 

We  pray  that  no  civilization  that  is  conceited  and  arrogant  may  be 
suffered  to  spread  abroad  without  the  leavening  influence  of  a  true  Christian 
love  therein.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  be  with  those  who  i:eed  thee  most — 
not  with  those  who  are  strongest  and  who  dominate  in  the  counsels  of  men. 
We  beseech  of  thee  that  tbou  wilt  have  compassion  upon  all  the  world 
according  to  thy  promise,  and  that  Jew  and  Gentile  may  be  gathered  in, 
and  that  all  the  earth  may  see  thy  salvation. 

These  mercies  we  ask  in  the  adorable  name  of  Jesus,  to  whom,  with  the 
Father,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  shall  be  praises  evermore.  Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMOX. 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  word  of  truth 
which  has  been  spoken.  Guide  our  thoughts  aright.  Awaken  in  us  more 
than  curiosity,  and  far  more  than  anger.  Awakea  in  us  a  desire  to  know 
what  the  meaning  of  thy  ijrovideuce  is,  and  what  are  the  ways  in  which 
thou  art  going.  Thou  coraest  strangely  to  bless  the  world.  Thou  comest 
with  the  plow,  disturbing  the  earth.  Thou  dost  turn  up  in  revolution 
the  things  that  were,  in  order  that  better  things  may  be  j)lauted  In  their 
stead.  Grant  that  we  may  discern  thy  coming;  that  we  may  anticipate  it; 
that  we  may  prepare  the  way  for  thee  lest  thou  sh  ilt  come  with  fire,  in  our 
neglect,  to  prepare  it  for  thyself.  Give  intelligence  to  those  who  are 
ignoratit,  and  wisdom  to  those  who  lack  it.  Grant  that  all  the  elemental 
forces  of  society  may  be  under  the  sanctifying  influences  of  thy  Spirit,  and 
may  be  guided  aright. 

We  pray  for  the  nations  of  the  earth.  We  rejoice  that  they  are  finding 
each  other  out.  And  il  kings  will  noi  have  sympathy,  and  governments 
will  be  selfish  and  arrogant  and  oppressive,  and  represent  the  animal  and 
belluine  qualities  of  human  nature,  may  they  be  overruled. 

We  thank  thee  tbat  at  last  among  laboring  men  there  is  coming  to  be 
sympathy,  aud  that  there  is  the  drawing  of  nations  together  in  good-will. 
Grant  that  out  of  the  movements  that  are  inaugurated  there  may  come  a 
better  civilization.  May  wo  accept  these  movements,  and  help  carry  them 
forward,  and  so  be,  in  thy  band,  an  instrument  for  lifting  up  the  nations  of 
the  globe.  Let  thy  kingdom  come,  and  thy  will  be  done  on  eaith  as  it  is  in 
heaven. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise.  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  evermore. 
Amen. 


XII. 

The  Battle  of  Benevolence. 


INVOCATION. 

Look  upon  us  mercifully,  thou  that  didst  create  us :  thou  that  hast  blessed 
us  by  thy  providence  in  our  various  phases  of  life.  Have  compassion  upon 
us,  not  according  to  our  thought  of  ourselves,  but  according  to  the  generosity 
of  thy  nature.  Look  upon  us,  this  morning,  and  desire  us ;  and  may  thy 
desire  draw  us  toward  thee ;  and  may  we  know  that  thou  art  thinking  of  us 
as  a  father  thinks  of  his  children,  by  the  response  which  our  hearts  give  forth 
to  thine.  We  turn  our  faces  toward  thee ;  hide  not  thy  face  from  us.  We 
lift  our  hearts  up  to  thee.  Thou  that  art  filling  every  cup  with  light  and  with 
moisture,  giving  even  to  the  grass  and  the  plants  what  they  need  for  nourish- 
ment. Wilt  thou  forget  us,  that  need  divine  grace  even  as  the  rain,  and  divine 
illumination  even  as  the  sunlight?  Think  of  us!  And  may  we  be  imited 
with  thee,  this  day,  and  walk  in  a  blessed  fellowship  of  love.  We  ask  It  for 
Christ's  sake.  Amen. 
12. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  BEIEVOLENCE, 


•'Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  revile  you,  and  persecute  you,  and 
Kliall  say  all  manner  of  evil  against  you  falsely  for  my  name's  sake.  Rejoice 
and  be  exceediug  glad."  "  Let  your  light  so  shine  before  men,  that  they  may 
i-ee  your  good  works,  and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven."— Matt. 
v.,  11, 13, 16. 


The  opening  passage  of  this  portion  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew 
is  substantially  the  bnilding  np  before  the  eyes  of  carnal  and  sen- 
suous men  the  conception  of  Christian  character,  of  a  new  char- 
acter in  which  are  made  conspicuous  those  characteristics  which 
are  least  esteemed  as  virtues  among  men. 

Blessed  are  tlie  poor  in  spirit.  Blessed  are  the  mourners. 
Blessed  arc  the  meek.  Blessed  are  men  of  aspiration,  who  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness.  Blessed  are  the  merciful,  the  pure 
in  heart,  the  happiness-makers — or  "  peacemakers,"  as  they  are 
called  here.     Blessed  are  the  persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake. 

It  is  declared,  substantially,  that  men  who  pursue  high  ideals  ot 
Christian  life  and  character  will  meet  opposition,  persecution ;  and 
although  the  form  here  indicated  is  that  of  outward  persecution,  it 
is  just  as  true  inwardly  as  it  is  outwardly.  That  is  to  say,  perse- 
cution for  righteousness'  sake  is  just  as  common  to-day  as  it  was 
in  the  ages  immediately  following  Christ.  Outward  persecution 
against  a  corporate  body,  or  against  representative  men  who  belong 
to  a  school  or  a  philosophy — that  ceases,  mostly.  Instead  of  the 
church  being  persecuted  by  tlie  world,  the  church  has  adopted  the 
principle  of  persecution,  and  uses  it  all  up,  one  sect  quarreling  with 
another.  But  the  opposition,  the  resistance,  to  goodness  in  men, 
still  continues ;  and  no  man  ever  becomes  a  Christian  after  the  pat- 
tern of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  without  a  good  long  battle  for  it.  We 
are  built  primarily  on  the  pattern  of  animals  ;  and  as  we  are  born 
into  this  life  by  struggles  and  by  pains,  so  we  go  on  from  infancy 
fighting  for  development  by  straggles  and  by  pains;  and  unfolding 
and  unfolding,  we  rise  from  pure  animalism  to  a  form  of  social 
excellence.     The  child  becomes  affectionate,  and  comes,  little  by 

Suvn^T  Morning,  May  19,  1872.     Lesson:  John.  Xin.,I-17.    Hymns  (Pljmoath  Col- 
lection): Kos.  1344,  ceo,  1181. 


210  THE  BATTLE  OF  BENEVOLENCE. 

little,  to  regard  others'  welfixre.  And  still  developing,  we  begin  to 
take  in  a  larger  circle,  and  to  refine  our  conceptions  of  fineness 
among  men,  until  at  last  we  come  to  that  full  disclosure  of  disin- 
terested benevolence  which  the  Gospel  itself  has  for  its  heart  and 
center.  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  This  it  is  to  be  a  Christian.  This 
is  the  ideal  of  Christian  life. 

Now,  no  man  was  ever  born  into  that.  There  is  many  a  man 
who  has  been  born  into  an  inheritance  of  money ;  there  is  many  a 
man  whose  father  has  left  him  a  picture-gallery,  a  library,  and 
estates,  and  warehouses,  and  ships,  and  stocks,  and  other  annoy- 
ances of  that  kind ;  but  there  was  never  a  man  who  was  born  into 
the  fully  disclosed  treasure  of  a  Christian  character.  Nature  has 
to  be  grafted  before  it  produces  that,  always.  The  natural  stock 
does  not  bear  it.  On  the  way  to  that  every  man  has  to  fight  his 
battle.  And  this  is  the  battle  of  benevolence,  as  I  call  it.  That  is 
to  say,  every  man  is  born  a  great  way  oflT  from  true  benevolence, 
and  he  has  to  fight  his  way  up  to  that  state  against  powers  within 
and  circumstances  without.  So  that  if  a  man  comes  to  that  higher 
ideal  which  is  set  forth  in  the  Gospel — the  ideal,  namely,  of  one 
who  addresses  the  whole  force  of  his  being  to  the  making  of  others 
better  and  happier — he  comes  to  it  by  a  succession  of  victories.  He 
earns  it  by  hard  spiritual  endeavor  or  conflict. 

There  is  no  happiness  in  this  world  like  that  which  one  mind 
can  produce  upon  another.  Almost  all  our  ideas  of  true  happiness 
— certainly  all  when  we  have  risen  to  any  considerable  degree  of 
culture  and  refinement — are  ideas  of  the  happiness  which  one  mind 
produces  upon  another.  Our  social  gatherings,  if  you  look  at  their 
last  analysis,  amount  to  that.  When  we  are  to  receive  company, 
we  prepare  our  rooms  so  that  everything  shall  be  the  most  cheerful, 
We  dress  ourselves  so  that  every  man  shall  seem  the  most  comely  to 
the  others.  We  lay  aside  all  controversy,  and  all  topics  that  lead 
to  controversy — for  no  gentleman  talks  politics  in  general  com- 
pany. We  lay  aside  everything  that  is  disagreeable,  and  that  will 
tend  to  divide  opinions.  We  go  as  far  as  we  can  in  the  direction 
of  good  nature.  We  say  to  ourselves,  "  I  am  going  to  meet  So-and- 
So  ;  what  will  please  him  ?"  AVe  think  that  Ave  Avill  talk  to  this  man 
about  his  farm,  to  that  woman  about  her  children,  and  to  tho  other 
person  about  his  last  great  operation  on  the  street.  And  everybody 
goes  to  a  room  prepared  for  happiness,  in  a  dress  that  tends  to  please 
other  people,  and  therefore  to  attract  some  good-will  toward  them- 
selves. We  settle  the  topics  which  we  Avill  talk  about  and  the  topics 
which  we  Avill  avoid.    We  do  this  for  the  sake  of  pleasing.     And  so 


TEE  BATTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENCE.  2 1 1 

thirty  or  forty  people  spend  an  hour,  or  two  hours,  each  trying  to  be 
agreeable.  Seltishness  is  at  the  root  to  be  sure ;  but  everybody  says, 
"It  has  been  a  charming  night;"  and  philosophers  say,  "  How  much 
better  it  would  be  if  persons  went  to  see  each  other  oftener,  and 
learned  more  about  each  other !  The  horns  and  hoofs  would  be 
gone  if  people  would  get  better  acquainted  with  each  other.  The 
corners  would  be  taken  off,  and  the  rough  points  would  be  smoothed 
down.  It  is  ar  great  thing  to  have  people  come  together  in  society. 
When  they  are  isolated  they  cannot  be  cultivated,  of  course."  And 
so  they  moralize  upon  it.  But  the  root  of  the  whole  matter  is  this  : 
for  an  hour,  or  for  two  hours,  men  have  employed  the  whole  force 
of  their  minds,  they  have  exerted  all  the  powers  of  their  being,  to 
make  others  happy.  There  is  no  such  power  as  a  mind  has  to  wake 
up  and  thrill  another  mind  with  genuine  happiness — and  that,  too, 
when  we  are  even  in  the  lower  modes  of  development. 

Where  the  sphere  is  limited ;  where,  for  instance,  a  true  affec- 
tion has  sprung  up  between  two  natures ;  and  where  both  of  them 
are  kindled  to  the  height  and  exaltation  of  their  noblest  feeling, 
how  much  more  intense  the  happiness  is  which  is  produced  by  the 
action  of  one  mind  upon  another,  I  need  not  detail  to  you. 

These  illustrations  show  what  is  the  power  in  every  man  to 
make  men  about  him  happy  if  he  will  but  use  it  for  that  pur- 
jfose.  And  being  made  happy  is  not  sijnply  being  tickled  and  made 
superficially  happ3%  Every  man  is  to  "  Please  his  neighbor  for  his 
good  to  edification."  That  is,  he  is  to  please  the  best  part  of  him. 
He  is  to  please  his  higher  nature.  He  is  not  to  flatter  his  vanity, 
and  feed  his  body,  and  gratify  his  sensuous  appetites.  He  is  to 
cultivate  and  build  up  his  own  nature  so  that  every  part  of  him, 
acting  on  his  fellow  men,  shall  make  them  happy  while  inspiring 
them,  and  ennobling  them,  and  lifting  them  higher  and  higher  in 
life.     That  is  the  divine  ideal  of  character. 

Now,  if  this  soul  of  ours  be  inspired,  not  merely  by  this  general 
influence  of  well-wishing  or  love,  but  by  a  desire  to  please,  to 
difluse  light,  and  cheer,  and  courage,  and  hope,  and  happiness 
wherever  we  go,  making  men  feel  that  we  are  a  bounty  of  the  Lord 
to  them ;  if  in  addition  to  natural  affection  the  inspiration  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  given,  so  that  there  is  an  ineffable  influence,  as  well 
as  the  more  obvious  and  constitutional  power;  so  that  there  is  that 
rare  enthusiasm,  that  ethereal  essence  which  goes  with  it — then  you 
have,  as  I  understand  it,  the  whole  conception  of  the  character  of 
man  acting  in  the  sphere  of  time  ;  namely,  that  he  is  a  being  so  re- 
created by  the  power  of  the  transforming  Spirit  of  God  that  ho 
knows  how  to  use  his  whole  nature  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  a  con- 


/ 


212  THE  BATTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENCE. 

tinual  offering  of  bounty,  of  love,  of  hope,  of  cheer,  of  faith,  and  of 
elevation  to  all  those  among  whom  he  goes.  Wherever  he  goes  he 
is  like  a  band  of  music. 

Go  into  the  worst  street  in  New  York,  where  filth  and  vice  and 
corruption  abound,  and  where  there  is  the  crying  of  children,  and 
the  barking  of  dogs,  and  the  quarreling  of  men  and  women,  and  let 
a  baud  of  music  come  in  at  one  end  and  march  through,  playing  as 
they  march,  and  the  sound  of  the  music  will  put  ■  an  end  to  the 
crying  and  barking  and  quarreling,  and  all  will  stand  for  the  mo- 
ment intent ;  and  when  the  band  has  swept  out,  and  the  music  has 
died  away  on  the  air,  they  will  take  a  new  breath,  and  will  have  to 
start  new  quarrels.  They  cannot  weld  the  old  ones  on  to  the  new 
ones. 

Now,  a  Christian  man  ought  to  go  through  the  world  like  a  band 
of  music.  The  great  ecclesiastical  body*  who  have  recently  come  into 
our  midst  to  bless  us,  and  to  excite  our  admiration,  ought  to  carry 
themselves  so  that  their  presence  shall  be  like  that  of  a  band  of 
music.  They  ought  to  be  so  full  of  Christian  graces,  so  full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  so  full  of  all  that  makes  manhood  beautiful,  and  that 
irradiates  life  with  hope  and  cheer,  so  full  of  sweetness^  and  pa- 
tience, and  temperance,  and  forbearance,  so  full  of  the  spirit  of 
honoring  each  other,  and  preferring  one  another,  and  bearing  each 
the  other's  burdens,  so  full  of  godliness,  that  all  the  city  shall  stand 
still  and  hear  these  musicians  of  God  play.  And  when  they  go 
away,  the  impression  which  they  leave  behind  them  should  be  such 
that  all  who  have  seen  them  and  heard  them  sing  shall  long  to  see 
them  and  hear  them  sing  again.  Oh,  if  Christian  men  were  only 
keyed  to  the  command,  Thou  shall  love  God  loith  all  thy  heart  and 
mind  and  soid,  and  thy  fellow  men  as  thyself/  if  every  man  loved 
every  other  man  as  a  mother  loves  her  babe  to  whom  she  gives  days 
and  nights,  her  whole  time,  her  strength,  her  very  life;  if  every 
man  loved  his  neighbor  as  himself;  if  love  abounded  in  every  man, 
according  to  the  idea  of  the  apostle,  what  a  different  conception 
there  would  be  of  Christian  life!  If  the  work  of  God  is  going 
on  in  you,  its  tendency  will  be  to  create  in  you  love  toward  others. 
Meetings  and  hymns  and  prayers  are  ladders  by  which  to  climb  up 
to  this;  but  they  are  good  for  nothing  unless  they  lead  to  it. 

Why  are  the  prayers  Avhicli  go  out  of  your  mouth  any  better  than 
the  Chinaman's  paper  prayers  Avhich  he  puts  into  a  mill,  and  which, 
when  they  come  out,  fly  to  the  winds  ?  They  are  no  better  if  they 
leave  you,  as  his  prayers  do  him,  the  same  stolid  creature  as  before. 
Prayer  is  good  wliich  makes  you  good.     And  are  you  good  ?    What 

*  The  Methodist  General  Conference. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  BENEVOLENCE.  218 

is  the  influence  which  you  exert?  Does  God,  looking  upon  you, 
feel  that  you  love  him,  as  the  sun  looking  upon  the  flowers,  knows, 
by  the  fragrance  which  they  send  up,  that  they  love  him  ?  Do  your 
neighbors  lind  that  your  religion  makes  you  so  full  of  sweetness 
and  beauty  that  they  are  always  happier  in  your  presence  than  out 
of  it? 

The  battle  of  life  does  not  consist  in  the  fact  that  you  are  per- 
secuted for  being  a  Protestant  or  for  being  a  Catholic.  It  does  not 
consist  in  the  fact  that,  being  a  Protestant  or  a  Catholic,  you  are 
di'iven  out  of  this  place  or  out  of  that  place  on  account  of  your  reli- 
gious views.  It  does  not  consist  in  the  fact  that  you  belong  to  the 
Universalists,  or  the  Swedenborgians,  or  to  any  of  the  "sects,"  as 
Orthodox  denominations  call  them.  It  does  not  consist  in  the  fact 
that  you  have  to  submit  to  outward  persecutions  of  any  sort.  The 
real  persecutions  of  men  in  these  days  are  those  which  are  going  on 
inside  of  them  when  they  attempt  to  lift  every  part  of  their  na- 
ture up  into  the  sphere  and  realm  of  bountiful  benevolence.  That 
is  what  we  have  to  fight  for.  Every  step  in  that  direction  is  a  step 
of  battle. 

The  first  battle  which  we  have  to  wage  is  what  I  shall  call  the 
battle  of  endowment.  Men  are  born  with  very  diS'erent  propor- 
tional endowments,  with  very  diflerent  temperaments,  and  into  very 
difierent  circumstances.  These  three  departments  constitute  the 
natural  divisions  of  the  battle  which  every  man  fights.  Some  men 
are  endowed  with  very  much  benevolence.  No  man,  however,  has 
benevolence  so  large  but  that  there  is  very  much  training  required 
before  it  can  have  a  victory  over  all  the  other  correlated  faculties. 
The  very  best  endowments  demand  education,  drill,  and  the  inspi- 
ration of  the  divine  Spirit,  before  they  can  be  brought  to  that  state 
of  ripeness  in  which  their  fruits  shall  be  fit  for  all  men's  tastes. 
But  there  are  few  men  who  naturally  have  benevolence  in  the 
ascendency. 

There  are  many  men  who  are  born  with  a  disproportionate  con- 
science— wliose  conscientiousness  is  excessively  large.  An  eminent 
poet,  speaking  of  his  life,  told  me  that  he  supposed  it  had  been 
mucli  less  useful  than  otherwise  it  would  have  been,  because  he  was 
so  conscientious.  He  said,  "  I  am  so  afraid  of  doing  wrong  that  I 
do  not  do  anything,  half  the  time."  I  do  not  think  it  is  the 
peculiar  difficulty  of  the  greatest  part  of  the  people  in  New  York 
that  they  are  so  conscientious  that  they  hold  in  all  the  time,  and 
that  they  do  but  little  because  they  are  afraid  of  not  doing  right; 
but  I  believe  it  was  true  of  this  noble  poet.  I  think  that  his  life  was 
limited  in  its  outplay  on  account  of  the  excess  of  conscientiousness 


214  TRE  BATTLE  OF  BENEVOLENCE. 

in  him.  There  are  many  men  who  are  very  conscientious;  bnt 
conscience  is  not  the  crown  of  Christian  character.  Love  is  the 
master,  and  conscience  must  be  its  servant.  Conscience  is  a 
hewer  of  wood  and  stone,  and  a  bringer  of  water.  Conscience  is 
necessary ;  it  is  indispensable.  But  suppose  a  man  were  to  build  a 
house.  No  doubt  it  would  be  indispensable  that  he  should  have 
good  square  sills,  and  strong  corner-posts.  It  would  be  essential 
that  all  the  timbers  should  be  of  ample  strength,  and  well  knitted 
together  and  braced.  But  suppose,  after  all  the  timbers  were  iu 
place  and  properly  jointed,  he  should  ask  me  to  come  to  his  house 
and  see  him.  A  house  with  notliing  but  timbers  would  be  like  a 
character  which  was  made  up  of  conscience  and  nothing  else.  Be- 
fore a  man  asks  you  into  his  house,  he  covers  the  timbers  up  out- 
side and  inside  so  that  the  walls  are  smooth  and  pleasant  to  come  in 
contact  with  and  to  look  upon ;  and  if  a  man's  character  is  to  be 
complete,  conscience  in  that  character  should  be  covered  up  by 
other  qualities  and  made  sweet  and  smooth.  Oftentimes,  where  a 
man  invites  his  friends  to  see  him,  the  ceiling  of  his  house  is  fres- 
coed, and  the  floor  is  richly  carpeted,  and  the  rooms  are  light  and 
cheerful,  and  on  every  hand  are  tokens  of  hospitality.  Hospitality 
does  not  ask  you  to  sit  on  a  log  because  a  log  is  necessary  to  the 
building  of  a  house.  But  many  men  are  square-built,  conscience- 
framed  men.  I  would  as  lief  sit  on  the  square  end  of  a  log  all  my 
life  as  to  live  with  men  who,  though  they  have  consciences,  are 
harsh  and  unlovely  and  unfruitful  because  there  is  nothing  iu 
them  to  cover  up  that  conscience  Conscience  is  desirable  and 
necessary;  but  in  order  to  make  it  \  ^lerable,  love  should  be  thrown 
around  it.  Conscience  is  the  frami  of  character,  and  love  is  the 
covering  for  it. 

Some  men  are  born  with  a  keen  sense  of  truth  and  justice.  I 
admit  that  truth  and  justice  must  be  fundamental  parts  of  Chris- 
tian character ;  but  I  say  that  truth  and  justice  are  not  the  ideals 
of  Christian  character.  They  are  partly  the  materials  out  of  Avhich 
it  is  made ;  but  the  essential  element  is  always  love. 

Some  men  are  born  with  large  self-esteem.  I  like  it,  I  like  to 
see  a  man  have  it,  and  I  wish  I  had  more  of  it.  It  breeds  self- 
respect.  It  breeds  a  sense  of  individuality — of  separateness.  It 
breeds,  also,  that  sense  of  dignity  which  makes  it  a  matter  of  im- 
portance to  a  man's  own  self  what  he  is,  and  where  he  is,  quite  in- 
dependent of  other  men's  thoughts,  and  quite  independent  of  all 
surrounding  circumstances.  It  is  a  grand  element ;  bnt  it  tends  to 
ambition ;  it  tends  to  coldness ;  it  tends  to  check  sympathy  with 
other  men.    It  is  centripetal — not  centrifugal.    It  inclines  one  to 


THE  BA  TTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENGE.  215 

draw  all  things  in  toward  himself,  rather  than  to  give  of  what 
he  has  to  others.  It  makes  a  man  think  that  he  is  a  god,  and  that 
other  people  should  bow  down  to  him.  It  creates  in  him  a  dis]5o- 
sition  to  punish  men  who  do  not  respect  and  worsliip  him.  When 
it  is  in  excess  it  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous  and  one  of  the  most 
tormenting  of  faculties.    It  must  be  subdued  by  the  spirit  of  love. 

One  of  the  most  illustrious  instances  of  the  subjugation  of  this 
quality  is  seen  in  the  case  of  the  apostle  Paul.  He  was  a  man  of 
great  and  cruel  pride,  as  we  know  by  his  persecuting  spirit ;  but  he 
was  changed  by  the  transforming  power  of  Christ's  love.  And 
after  his  pride  was  changed,  how  he  centered  himself  on  love  !  How 
his  life  was  wreathed  about  with  the  blossoming  vines  of  love! 
How  he  was  like  a  mountain  of  Paradise  wherever  men  found  him ! 

But  he  was  not  changed  in  an  «instant.  Men  think -that  Paul 
was  converted  all  the  way  through  when  he  Avas  cast  down  on  the 
road  to  Damascus.  No  ;  he  was  three  years  in  Arabia ;  and  it  was 
twenty  years  before  much  more  was  heard  of  him.  It  was  a  long 
time  after  this  memorable  event  before  he  came  out  with  his  letters, 
and  presented  to  men  the  various  developments  of  his  experience. 
He  had  many  struggles,  and  endured  mucli  suffering,  before  his 
victory  over  pride  was  achieved.  Grace  inspires  a  man  to  fight  for 
such  a  victory,  but  it  never  brings  him  to  it  instantaneously.  It 
■works  in  us  to  will  and  to  do.  It  stirs  us  up  to  fight  the  battle.  In 
other  words,  it  gives  such  an  education  that  benevolence  shall  com- 
pletely supersede  and  govern  conscience,  self-esteem,  love  of  appro- 
bation, and  all  that  is  below  them  of  the  lower  passions. 

When  a  man  goes  into  the  church  how  do  we  question  him, 
generally  ?  We  say  to  him, "  Are  you  convinced  that  you  are  a  great 
sinner  ?"  "  I  am."  "  Do  you  feel  that  you  have  sinned  against  the 
law  of  God  all  your  life  long  ?"  The  man  thinks  that  the  law 
of  God  is  something  g^-eat ;  that  it  is  something  afar  off.  He  has 
been  taught  that  he  has  sinned  against  something  or  other — that 
great  law ;  but  he  does  not  exactly  know  what  it  is ;  and  he  says, 
"  Yes,  I  have  sinned  against  the  law  of  God."  "  Do  you  think  that 
you  deserve  God's  wrath  and  curse?"  "I  hope  I  do."  "Do  you 
feel  that  you  have  repented  of  sin  ?"  "•!  think  I  have."  "  Do 
you  think  that  God  has  changed  your  heart,  and  has  given  you  a 
new  one  ?"  "  I  hope  he  has."  "  And  do  you  mean  to  lead  a  Chris- 
tian life  ?"    "  I  do."    «  Go  on  to  the  next." 

Now,  all  of  that  is,  in  one  point  of  view,  very  well ;  but,  after 
all,  do  you  think  that  man  understands  that  he  is  called  to  this 
life,  to  this  battle,  or  to  this  education,  if  you  choose  to  call  it  so, 
"by  ivhich  all  the  forces  of  his  nature  are  to  be  transformed  from 


216  THE  BA  TTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENCE. 

an  earthly  level  of  self-seeking  or  of  serving  himself  to  this  serving 
of  other  men  ? 

When  the  man  gets  home,  after  having  been  examined,  on  going 
into  his  house,  he  sees  sitting  in  the  large  plush  chair  which  he  in- 
tended for  himself,  the  maiden  aunt  who  never  was  very  agreeable 
to  him,  whom  he  had  to  take  care  of,  who  came  on  to  him  against 
his  wish.  Seeing  her  in  that  chair,  he  is  irritated.  At  night,  the 
child  says,  "  Father,  can't  I  sit  up  ?"  "  No,  you  can't,"  he  says. 
"  Go  to  bed."  The  child  does  not  know  what  the  matter  is,  but 
dares  not  ask,  and  gets  a  candle  and  goes  to  bed.  Why  is  it  that  he 
is  in  such  a  fit  of  irritation  ?  Simply  because  this  aunt  had  his 
chair.  She  knew  that  it  was  his  chair,  and  knew  that  he  liked  to 
sit  in  it;  and  yet  she  occupied  it,  and  deprived  him  of  the  enjoy- 
ment of  it.  He  has  just  been«before  the  Examining  Committee, 
preparatory  to  joining  the  church,  and  the  first  instant  that  an  op- 
portunity is  presented  to  him  of  giving  up  his  pleasure  to  some- 
body else,  he  flies  like  a  struck  tumbler  all  to  splinters. 

The  next  morning  does  he  begin  the  battle  at  breakfast  ?  A 
man  who  serves  at  the  table  has  not  a  few  chances  to  favor  himself. 
There  are  many  ways  in  which  a  man  can  serve  out  a  steak  or  a 
chicken  so  as  to  save  the  best  for  himself.  It  is  a  straw  that  shows 
which  way  the  wind  blows.  And  does  he  forego  this  advantage  and 
take  the  poorest  himself? 

In  his  house  is  a  little  orphan  girl  who  is  not  very  comely, 
and  who  is  shiftless  and  disagreeable.  Does  he  show  a  shining 
face  to  her  ?  Does  he  extend  to  her  any  sympathy  or  encourage- 
ment? Does  he  excite  in  her  a  desire  to  please  him  because  he 
is  kind  to  her  ?    Not  at  all. 

Is  there  in  him  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  Is  there  in 
him  that  spirit  which  leads  him  to  say,  "  I  am  willing  to  wash  other 
people's  feet,"?  There  was  nothing  mora, menial  that  a  servant 
could  do,  in  the  time  of  our  Saviour,  than  to  wash  another's  feet ;  and 
yet  Christ  did  it,  in  order  that  he  might  say  to  his  disciples,  "  I  that 
am  your  Lord  and  Master  do  it,  and  you  must  do  it."  You  must  bow 
yourselves  down  to  the  lowest  places  where  man  suffers  or  sins, 
and  there  you  must  become  his  servant  in  love,  and  must  serve  him. 
There  is  not  a  child  in  the  household  that  is  not  your  master,  and 
that  you  ought  not  to  be  a  servant  to.  There  is  not  a  rheumatic  and 
ugly  creature  in  your  neighborhood  that  you  ought  not  to  serve. 
There  is  not  a  poor  man  that  you  meet  in  your  routine  of  business 
that  you  ought  not  to  be  Sir  Bountiful  to.  Do  you  like  these 
things?  When  you  Avere  asked  to  enlist  under  the  banner  of  Christ; 
when  you  heard  the  silver  trumpet  blowing,  and  saw  the  white  flag 


TEE  BATTLE  OF  BENEVOLENCE,  217 

floating,  what  visipns  you  had !  You  wanted  to  join  that  army  and 
go  with  those  men.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  feet-washing,  how 
do  you  like  that  ?  Have  you  joined  the  Lord  ?  Are  you  willing  to 
put  your  hand  underneath  the  men  who  need  help  ?  Do  you  love 
disagreeable,  quarrelsome  folks  ?  Do  you  know  how  to  be  patient  ? 
Do  you  know  how  to  be  patient  not  only  with  men  that  are  good, 
but  with  men  that  are  bad,  and  wickedly  bad  ?  Do  you  know  how 
to  be  as  patient  with  others  and  their  provocations  as  Christ  has 
been  with  you  and  your  infinite  provocations  ?  Do  you  know  how 
to  be  as  patient  with  other  people's  children  as  with  your  own  ? 

What  do  people  think  a  Christian  is  ?  What  is  the  popular  ap- 
prehension on  this  subject  ?  Is  it  that  he  is  a  person  who  is  most 
patient  and  forgiving  ?  What  is  the  general  definition  of  Chris- 
tianity ?  Do  not  some  folks  think  that  it  means  a  kind  of  insurance 
policy,  and  that  it  has  little  to  do  with  this  life,  but  that  it  is  a  very 
good  thing  when  a  man  dies?  Are  there  not  some  people  who  think 
that  it  is  a  sort  of  rude  covenant  by  which  a  man  will  be  saved  ?  1 
think  that  there  is  an  element  in  conversion  which  insures  salvation ; 
but  that  sordid  idea  of  being  converted  so  as  not  to  founder,  and 
for  the  sake  of  being  brought  safely  into  port,  is  the  lowest  and  least, 
part  of  Christianity.  Before  you  are  a  full  Christian,  you  are  to  be 
like  your  Master.  There  is  a  cross  for  you  somewhere.  You  are  to 
be  like  Him  who,  when  he  was  reviled,  reviled  not  again ;  who 
being  in  the  form  of  God,  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal  with 
God,  but  (smptied  himself  of  reputation,  and  took  upon  himself  the 
form  of  a  servant,  and  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men ;  and  who, 
being  found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  humbled  himself,  and  sufiered 
death  for  you ;  and  who  taught  you  what  to  do  by  the  illustrious 
act  of  washing  his  disciples'  feet.  Do  men  think  that  religion  is  to 
keep  Sunday  ?  Keeping  Sunday  is  a  good  thing.  Do  men  think 
that  religion  is  to  have  fast  days  ?  Fast  days  may  be  proper  to  those 
who  can  stand  them.  Do  men  think  that  religion  is  to  perform 
certain  devotional  acts  ?  Such  acts  may  be  right  and  proper.  But 
the  vitality  of  religion  is  not  in  these  things. 

When  Peter  heard  the  cock  crow,  it  was  not  the  tail  feath- 
ers that  crew;  the  crowing  came  out  from  the  inside  of  the 
cock.  Eeligion  is  something  more  than  the  outward  observances 
of  the  church.  It  does  not  consist  in  forms  and  ceremonies  and 
symbols.  It  is  the  life  that  is  inside  of  men  that  constitutes  the 
religious  element.  And  in  that  inside  life  no  man  can  do  other 
than  contest. 

Then  go  from  faculty  to  temperament.  Some  men  are  sluggish 
of  temperament ;  and  they  justify  themselves  on  that  ground.  They 


218  THE  BATTLE  OF  BENEYOLBNGE. 

Bay,  "You  know  that  I  have  to  wake  vip  before  I  can  do  so  and  so. 
Temperaments  cannot  change."  They  excuse  themselves  for  a  great 
many  delinquincies  on  account  of  the  sluggishness  of  their  temper- 
ament. Other  men  are  of  a  fiery  temperament.  They  are  nervous 
to  excess.  Other  men  are  thoracic  in  temperament.  They  generate 
an  enormous  quantity  of  blood.  They  are  red  in  the  face — fiery  red. 
Others  are  of  an  abdominal  temperament.  They  digest  too  much 
food,  and  it  assimilates  too  slowly,  and  they  become  gross  and  flabby, 
and  are  inclined  to  sleep  a  great  deal.  And  the  somnolent  man 
justifies  himself  for  this  that  and  the  other  fault  on  account  of  his 
temperament,  just  as  the  fiery  man  justifies  himself  on  account  of 
his  temperament.  But  is  it  not  the  duty  of  each  man  to  subdue 
his  temperament  to  the  power  of  Christian  love  ?  Is  there  no  work 
required  of  you  in  transforming  your  nature  into  the  likeness  of  the 
divine  Spirit  ? 

Then,  men  are  surrounded  by  all  the  inequalities  of  life.  We 
find  them  subject  to  various  circumstances.  It  is  hard  for  a  man 
who  knows  more  in  his  little  finger  than  another  man  does  in  his 
whole  body  to  be  subject  to  that  man,  whose  body  slopes  in  the 
wrong  way, — is  biggest  in  his  feet  and  runs  to  a  point  at  his  head. 
It  is  hard  for  an  intelligent  man  to  be  under  an  iguorant  man.  Espe- 
cially is  it  hard,  when  he  is  a  spiteful  man,  to  answer  not  again,  and 
not  only  not  to  answer  again,  but  not  to  want  to  answer.  It  is  hard 
for  a  man  to  be  so  subdued  that  he  can  obey  the  injunction  of  the 
apostle  when  he  says  to  servants,  "  Be  obedient  to  your  masters, 
slaves."  It  is  hard  to  be  obedient  to  one's  master  even  when  he  is 
gentle ;  but  it  is  far  more  so  when  he  is  forward. 

Can  yon  take  the  position  in  which  providence  places  you,  though 
it  be  in  the  scullery,  in  the  kitchen,  or  in  the  back  shop  ?  Can  you 
bear,  patiently,  to  be  a  pauper,  a  bankrupt,  among  men  whom,  in 
many  respects,  you  can  look  down  upon,  and  have  them  point  at 
you,  and  speak  slightingly  of  you,  and  avoid  you,  or,  wlien  they 
meet  you,  not  see  you  until  you  have  passed,  and  then  turn 
around  and  say  of  you,  "  He  has  failed,  and  he  is  of  no  ac- 
count "?  Can  you  take  all  the  contempts  of  life,  all  the  flings  at  your 
misfortune,  all  these  inequalities,  and  feel  that  you  have  been  put 
upon ;  can  you  feel  that  you  are  an  object  of  envy  and  jealousy ;  can 
you  feel  that  your  character  has  been  maligned ;  can  you  feel  that 
you  have  been  dealt  with  foully  and  have  been  wronged ;  can  you  take 
all  that  comes  in  your  natural  life ;  can  you  see  your  name  used  for 
slanderous  purposes;  and  then  can  you  say,  "  Dear  Lord,  thanks  for 
these  rough  schoolmasters  to  teach  me  in  the  book  of  life"?  Can 
you  turn  right  around  and  pray  for  those  who  despitefully  use  you  ? 


.  THE  BA  TTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENOE.  219 

Here  is  a  man  who  has  shot  you  through  your  children,  and 
wounded  you  to  the  very  quick ;  here  is  a  man  who  has  attacked 
you  in  your  honor ;  and  all  that  is  evil  in  you  says,  "  Damn  him, 
rise  up  and  curse  him  ;"  and  can  you  stand  and  say,  "  Jesus,  Master, 
now  let  me  be  like  thee  "?  Can  you  say,  "  I  pray  for  him '?  Can 
you  say,  "  Open  love,  open  pity,  in  my  heart "?  Can  you  say,  "  0 
let  me,  by  patient  continuance  in  well-doing,  put  to  shame  these 
men  who  ai-e  persecuting  me  "?  Can  you  do  good  to  your  enemies 
and  not  let  them  know  it ;  can  you  not  only  not  put  obstacles  in 
their  way,  but  take  them  out  of  their  way ;  can  you  open  a  heart 
full  of  balm,  that,  like  a  garden,  shall  pour  out  upon  them  the 
sweetness  of  perfume ;  and  can  you  do  these  things  because  you  are 
a  Christian,  because  you  love  Jesus,  and  because  you  are  trying  to 
live  so  that  you  shall  be  by  his  side  in  the  eternal  world  ?  Is  that 
your  idea  of  being  a  Christian  ?  And  do  you  suppose  that  you  can 
do  such  things  without  a  fight  ?  Do  they  not  require  a  battle,  and 
a  royal  battle  ? 

I  have  developed  this  view  of  what  it  is  to  be  a  Christian  for 
the  sake  of  sliowing  that  the  Scriptural  idea  of  piety,  though  it  ex- 
horts to  activity  and  the  exertion  of  strength,  enjoins  the  milder 
qualities  of  the  Spirit,  such  as  love  and  meekness  and  humility. 
When  you  go  through  the  New  Testament,  and  search  out  Christ's 
teachings,  and  put  them  together,  you  will  find  that  they  point  to 
the  royal  manhood  of  a  love  which  is  supereminent  over  all  that  is 
in  you,  and  makes  you,  toward  all  men,  gentle,  happiness-giving, 
courage-inspiring,  cheering,  shining,  so  that  wherever  you  go  you 
carry  joy.  A  man  from  whom  children  run  away  when  he  comes 
where  they  ai*e,  ought  to  examine  his  evidences  quickly. 

Though  when  you  go  among  persons,  they  may  not,  acting 
under  prejudice,  at  first  like  you,  you  ought  to  see  to  it  that 
their  dislike  of  you  does  not  last  long.  You  ought  not  to  stay  a 
week  in  any  man's  house  without  his  thinking  better  of  manhood 
for  your  staying  there.  You  ought  not  to  be  a  teacher  in  a  school 
without  making  sure  that  the  scholars  have  a  better  feeling  toward 
you  when  you  leave  than  when  you  come  among  them.  It  is  your 
business  to  "  let  your  light  so  shine  before  men,  that  they  may  see 
your  good  works,  and  glorify  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven." 

How  many  clerks  have  sat  in  church  and  seen  their  employers 
partake  of  the  Lord's  Suppei',  and,  knowing  what  they  did  in  the 
store,  said  to  themselves,  "  AVell,  if  that  man  is  a  Christian,  I  thank 
God  that  I  am  not  one !"     What  a  testimony  that  is ! 

On  the  other  hand,  a  child  brought  up  by  infidel  or  unbelieving 
parents,  sometimes  says,  "  I  thought  religion  was  all  a  pretense  or 


220  TEE  BATTLE  OF  BENEVOLENCE. 

delusion  ;  I  was  taught  to  think  so ;  but  I  have  been  with  people 
who  I  was  satisfied,  by  the  way  they  lived,  had  something  that  I 
have  not ;  and  I  want  that  something,  whatever  it  is."  When  they 
see  the  exhibition  of  that  grace  of  God  which  turns  a  man's  whole 
soul  into  an  orchard  of  fruit,  or  a  garden  of  flowers,  and  sweetens 
his  disposition,  and  makes  his  life  beautiful,  they  want  it. 

Now  I  am  prepared  to  give  you  my  idea  of  a  church.  I  believe 
that  a  man  has  a  right  to  be  a  gardener.  Any  man  who  loves  flow- 
ers, and  can  raise  them,  no  matter  whether  he  can  trace  his  lineage 
back  to  one  of  the  apostles  or  not,  has  a  right  to  raise  them,  and 
call  himself  a  gardener.  If  a  man  can  trace  his  pedigree  from 
period  to  period,  straight  back  to  the  apostles,  he  is  no  worse  for 
that,  and  he  is  no  better.  Who  a  man's  ancestry  were  does  not 
make  a  particle  of  difference  with  what  he  is.  A  man  who  has  the 
power  and  skill  to  raise  fine  flowers  is  a  gardener,  and  deserves  to  be 
called  one. 

What  is  a  garden  ?  It  is  a  place  set  apart  for  raising  flowers, 
Wherever  there  is  a  place  set  apart  for  raising  flowers  it  is  a  garden, 
if  flowers  are  raised  there.  What  is  a  church  ?  It  is  simply  a  col- 
lection of  men  who  undertake  to  subdue  all  their  forces  to  the  law 
of  love;  who  undertake  to  use  their  thought-j^ower,  their  senti- 
mental-power, their  whole  nature,  their  time,  their  business,  every- 
thing that  is  in  them  or  around  about  them,  to  regulate  their  life 
according  to  the  Spirit  of  God ;  who  undertake,  in  all  that  they  do> 
to  act  under  the  influence  of  kindness  and  love.  What  do  they 
come  together  for  ?  To  help  each  other  do  it.  They  come  together 
to  intershine  upon  each  other;  to  give  each  other  the  advantage 
of  counsel,  of  sympathy,  of  succor,  and  of  insi)iration.  Where  two 
or  three  are  gathered  together  in  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
there  is  the  germ  of  a  church. 

"  Well,  what  about  government  ?"  Nothing  about  government. 
"Well,  what  about  ordinances?"  Nothing  about  ordinances. 
"  Well,  what  about  the  ministry  ?"  Nothing  about  the  ministry. 
You  may  have  as  much  government  or  as  little,  as  you  please ;  you 
may  have  as  many  ordinances  or  as  few,  as  you  please ;  you  may 
regulate  the  affairs  of  the  ministry  as  you  please  ;  but  the  essential 
elements  of  a  churcli  consist  in  the  disposition  of  its  individual 
members  who  love  God  supremely  and  their  fellow  men  as  them- 
selves. A  man  who  does  love  God  and  his  fellow  men  thus,  is  fit  to 
be  a  member,  and  is  a  member,  of  the  invisible  church.  A  church 
is  not  a  hereditary  institution  ;  it  is  not  an  artificial  thing ;  it  is  the 
gathering  together  of  sanctified  benevolences  in  individual  men. 
That  constitutes  a  church. 


TEE  £A  TTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENCE.  221 

Suppose  I  should  go  into  a  vast  stone  building  that  was  filled 
full  of  funereal-looking  pews,  and  that  was  made  to  look  like 
a  sepulcher,  very  little  light  being  allowed  to  come  in,  and 
should  see  rows  of  coffins  standing  in  all  the  pews ;  and  suppose  I 
should  go  around  and  look  at  these  coffins,  and  read  the  inscrip- 
tions on  them,  among  which  was  this  eminent  name,  and  that  emi- 
nent name ;  and  suppose  that  I  should  be  told  that  this  place,  filled 
with  coffins,  in  whom  were  men  as  dead  as  door-nails,  was  the 
church  of  the  living  God  ?  It  would  not  be  one  particle  more  hor- 
rible than  to  go  into  great  assemblies  of  men,  pompously  sur- 
rounded, who  were  dead  to  God,  dead  to  love,  dead  to  all  spiritual 
elements,  and  whose  life  was  a  life  of  envy,  and  selfishness,  and 
jealousy,  and  all  uncharitableness,  and  call  that  God's  church.  Not 
only  are  all  such  men  dead,  but  they  ought  to  have  been  buried 
long  ago ;  for  they  stink !  Is  that  a  church  yonder  ?  What 
makes  it  a  church  ?  Stone  on  stone  ?  What  makes  it  a  church  ? 
Timber  on  timber  ?  Why  is  it  a  church  ?  Because  it  holds  a  con- 
gregation vast  as  a  caravan  in  a  desert,  and  as  desertly  sur- 
rounded ?  What  is  it  that  makes  a  church  ?  It  is  the  spirit 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  dwelling  among  men,  and  saying  to 
them,  "  No  greater  love  hath  any  man  than  this,  that  he  lay  down 
his  life  for  another ;  and  ye  should  lay  down  your  lives  for  others." 
The  towel ;  the  basin  of  water ;  the  washing  of  the  feet ;  the  sym- 
pathizing with  all  men  and  women,  however  good  or  however 
bad  they  may  be;  the  giving  one's  life-force  for  the  sake  of  making 
others  happy  and  better — these  things  belong  to  the  church  of 
God,  and  to  the  lives  of  the  members  of  that  church.  They 
are  tKe  lifters  who  take  hold  down  low,  and  are  raising  society  up. 
They  are  the  bountiful,  the  joy-producing  men,  who  can  stand 
under  their  load,  and  carry  it,  and  smile  as  they  carry  it,  though  it 
be  a  cross,  a  yoke,  a  burden.  They  are  Christians  who,  being 
fought,  can  return  good  for  evil ;  who,  being  cursed,  can  send 
showers  of  prayers  down  on  the  heads  of  those  who  curse  them.  Ifc 
is  such  men  that  make  a  true  church.  You  must  begin  on  the  in- 
side to  make  a  Christian  church.  You  cannot  begin  on  the  out- 
side. The  church  of  the  living  God  is  one  in  which  the  divine 
Spirit  of  love  reigns. 

How  many  churches  have  we  according  to  this  definition  ? 
There  is  one  church  that  has  never  gone  into  captivity.  There  is  one 
church  in  which  the  law  of  love  has  always  been  supreme.  It  is  the 
church  of  the  cradle.  It  is  the  church  of  the  household.  It  has 
its  saints — its  saint  mother  and  its  saint  father.  That  is  a  church 
where  love  is  the  prime  element,  the  sustaining  law,  the  educating 


222  TEE  BA  TTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENCE. 

force,  the  life-principle.  And  if  you  could  gather  a  hundred  fami- 
lies into  a  church  who  should  carry  with  them  this  spirit  of  love, 
and  manifest  it  wherever  they  went,  in  all  the  spheres  of  life,  do 
you  suppose  that  anything  could  withstand  their  influence  ?  If  a 
body  of  men  and  women,  filled  with  the  fire  and  zeal  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  should  go  forth,  giving  supremacy  to  love  in  all  the  offices 
of  the  intellect,  the  imagination,  the  heart,  appearing  before  men 
as  glowing  witnesses  of  this  fundamental  quality  of  Christian  life, 
do  you  suppose  that  city  could  long  go  without  its  pentecost  ? 

Brethren,  we  have  tried  the  cudgel,  we  have  tried  the  sword, 
"we  have  tried  vehement  declamation,  we  have  tried  eloquence,  we 
have  tried  controversy,  we  have  tried  conscience,  we  have  tried 
everything,  in  our  efforts  to  subdue  the  world.  There  is  only  one 
thing  left,  and  that  is  love.  If  that  fails,  the  world  is  damned. 
We  have  not  loved  enough.  We  have  not  been  patient  and  zealous 
enough.  We  have  not  been  glowing  enough.  AVe  have  not  opened 
th  heaven  so  that  where  we  stand  there  is  seen  the  light  of  the 
glory  of  God,  as  it  shines  in  the  face  of  Christ  Jesus.  We  have  not 
brought  prayer  as  a  great  battery  to  bear  against  the  world.  But 
when  we  do  get  all  these  mighty  forces  to  act  cooperatively,  in  pla- 
toons, I  believe  the  latter-day  glory  will  begin  to  come  fast. 

I  do  not  believe  we  shall  ever  be  able  to  resist  and  bear  up 
against  the  theories,  speculations,  skepticisms,  that  are  in  the  world, 
by  any  power  of  mere  ratiocination  or  statement — though  there  is 
a  subordinate  work  in  that  direction.  I  believe  that  no  matter  who 
goes  right  or  wrong  in  regard  to  philosophies,  these  are  not  enough. 
I  am  willing  that  Mr.  Darwin,  and  Mr.  Huxley,  and  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, should  march  on.  They  may  analyze  and  synthesize  as 'much 
as  they  please,  but  one  thing  I  am  certain  of:  that  when  heaven 
and  earth  shall  pass  away,  there  Avill  be  one  thing  that  will  not 
pass  away,  and  that  is  a  symmetrical,  powerful,  manly  character, 
keyed  to  love,  and  conducted  on  the  principle  of  love.  And  if 
there  are  denominations  or  sects  or  men  who  are  teaching  any  the- 
ology so  as  to  bring  up  ranks  and  multitudes  whose  characters  are 
formed  upon  this  pattern,  they  will  stand  against  any  heresy  or 
false  philosophy  that  shall  be  urged  in  any  quarter.  Facts  will 
overthrow  theories ;  and  when  facts  cohere,  and  bear  upon  a  single 
point,  they  are  irresistible. 

The  sublimity  of  life  consists  in  sanctified  human  nature.  And 
in  the  power  of  loving  men,  who  Mve  to  use  all  their  forces  per- 
petually in  sympathy  and  harmony,  to  produce  glory  to  God  in 
the  highest,  and  good-will  among  men  on  earth — in  this  su- 
preme fact  there  is  that  which  no  man  can  gainsay,  or  wants  to 
gainsay. 


TEE  BA TTLE  OF  BENEVOLENCE.  223 

Oh,  tell  me  not  that  unbelief  is  to  rule  the  coming  times  !  Tell 
me  not  that  the  school  of  the  atheist  is  to  rob  the  heaven  of  all 
hope.  Tell  me  not  that  corruption  is  my  God,  and  that  the  grave 
is  my  judgment  day,  that  remands  me  back  to  dust  again.  Tell 
me  not  that  all  I  have  hoped  and  believed  is  but  a  fantasy — but  the 
lining  of  the  sepulcher — but  the  frescoing  of  the  grave.  I  do  be- 
lieve that  out  of  this  school  of  life  there  is  coming  up  an  army  of 
men  who  mean  something  more  than  annihilation.  I  believe  that 
the  grave,  dark  as  it  looks,  is  but  the  door  through  which  the 
nobler  part  of  men- — faith,  hope,  love — is  ascending  to  the  royalty 
of  an  everlasting  existence. 

Away  wnth  immortality,  if  it  be  but  the  transferring  of  pride  and 
selfishness  to  another  sphere;  but  if  immortality  is  the  love  of  God 
bred  in  the  souls  of  men,  filling  the  heaven  with  sweetness,  and 
filling  eternity  with  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory,  then  I  hail 
it ;  and  with  heart,  and  soul,  and  endeavor,  I  lift  my  life  toward 
it,  and  pray  that  though  I  have  not  attained,  I  may  by  the  grace 
of  God  yet  attain  to  the  resurrection  of  the  just,  and  that  I  may 
know  what  it  is  to  dwell  among  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  per- 
fect, Jesus  the  Mediator  of  the  new  covenant,  and  the  eternal  Father 
of  love. 


224  THE  BATTLE  OF  BENEVOLENCE. 


PRAYEE  BEFORE  THE  SERMOK 

We  rejoice  in  thee  at  all  times,  our  Father;  or,  when  we  do  not  rejoice, 
at  least  we  have  peace.  We  have  peace  even  though  it  be  in  small  measure. 
We  hope  when  peace  seems  to  fail.  From  hope  we  gather  peace ;  and  from 
peace  joy ;  and  joy  upon  joy  mounts  up,  at  times,  lull  of  glory.  And  yet, 
these  are  intermittent.  It  is  but  at  times  that  the  light  is  clear.  We  walk 
by  faith  when  we  cannot  walk  by  sight.  We  live  in  the  sight  of  the  invisi- 
ble, and  in  the  hope  of  that  which  we  cannot  see.  Thou  thyself  art  the 
invisible,  and  thy  realm,  our  home,  is  invisible,  and  all  that  go  out  from  us 
are  bidden ;  and  into  that  great  world  which  to  the  flesh  seems  shadowy 
and  vague  we  go,  quickened  by  the  Spirit  with  apprehension  to  make  it 
clear  and  plain,  and  are  architects  of  our  own  hope.  We  build,  and  fill  with 
a  blessed  population,  the  city  of  our  God.  And  thou  thyself,  O  God,  art  to 
us  that  which  we  would  make  thee  to  be.  So,  then,  that  we  may  not  build 
after  the  pattern  of  baseness  and  selfishness  and  pride,  grant  that  we  may 
have  that  holiness  of  heart  without  which  no  man  shall  see  the  Lord.  May 
we  be  better  in  order  that  we  may  see  God,  and  know  how  to  fashion  him 
to  our  thought  and  imagination  gloriously — ^far  above  the  inflrmHy  of 
man — ^far  above  the  experience  of  the  flesh.  Of  things  borrowed  from  our 
innermost  life  in  our  most  exalted  moments  may  we  fashion  the  realm  and 
royalties  of  the  heavenly  land,  and  may  our  thoughts  be  made  fruitful  by 
the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  May  we  have  that  spirit  of  revelation 
and  of  light,  that  inspiration,  which  kindles  from  the  hint  the  whole  reality, 
and  from  the  germ  teaches  the  full  growth.  Grant  that  we  may  know 
how  to  behold  thee,  and  to  see  that  that  which  we  behold  is  our  Lord  and 
our  God.  Take  away  from  us,  we  pray  thee,  all  those  things  which  sball 
make  our  God  an  idol — which  shall  lift  up  into  exaltation  and  make  the 
object  of  our  praise  that  which  is  base  and  wicked  among  men.  Deliver  us, 
we  beseech  of  thee,  from  idolatry  of  thought  and  imagination.  It  is  little 
that  we  turn  away  from  blocks  of  wood,  from  idols  made  of  stone,  and  of 
clay,  and  of  gold,  and  of  silver,  as  from  temples  consecrated  by  men's  super- 
stitious hands,  if  yet  in  our  thoughts  we  raise  up  before  us  a  view  of  God 
which  is  idolatrous  and  wicked.  Deliver  us  from  this.  Grant  that  we  may 
have  that  purity,  that  fullness  of  love,  that  sense  of  justice,  which  spriugs 
from  the  bosom  of  love.  Grant  that  we  may  have  such  conceptions  of 
holiness  in  men,  and  of  greater  holiness  in  God,  as  shall  fill  the  realm  with 
One  altogether  lovely,  the  Chief  among  ten  thousand— One  in  whom,  when 
the  eye  beholds  him,  it  shall  rejoice— One  who,  when  revealed,  shall  call 
forth  from  all  that  are  in  heaven  above,  and  in  the  earth  beneath,  and 
throughout  all  creation,  rapturous  songs  of  joy  and  acclamations  of  royalty. 
Grant  that  we  may  have  such  conceptions  of  thee  that  we  shall  walk  with 
God— and  the  true  God.  And  may  we  know  that  thou  art  the  true  (iod  to 
us  in  that  we  are  becoming  like  thee,  changed  into  that  wisdom  which  love 
pi'oduces;  into  that  justice  whic'a  comes  from  love;  into  that  purity  which 
is  inspired  by  love;  into  that  patience,  that  strength,  that  fruitfulness, 
which  springs  from  the  divine  root  of  love.  Reveal  to  us  this  realm  of 
thine.    Make  known  to  us  the  secret  of  God  in  this. 

We  pray,  O  Lord,  that  we  may  hate  all  forms  of  selfishness,  and  love 
that  which  is  right.  May  we  know  how  to  do  things  that  pertain  to  our- 
selves without  selfishness.  May  we  know  how  to  have  power  in  ourselves, 
and  yet  to  have  it  as  a  royal  scepter  reached  out  perpetually  to  help  those 
who  are  most  needy.  Give  us  health-power  but  that  we  may  minister  to 
the  sick.    Give  us  the  power  of  refinement  but  that  we  may  cheer  and  soften 


TEE  BA  TTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENCE.  225 

the  ways  of  the  rude.  Grant  unto  us  the  fruitfulness  of  thought,  grant  unto 
us  the  power  of  the  higher  nature  in  things  intellectual  and  moral,  that  we , 
may  be  a  light  to  those  who  are  ia  darkness.  May  our  life  be  as  sweet 
music,  to  call  those  who  are  in  solitude  and  in  sorrow  forth  from  their 
misery.  And  everywhere  that  we  go  may  there  be  that  courage,  that  good 
cheer,  that  bountifulness,  that  patience,  that  gentleness,  that  fortitude  in 
sufferiog,  that  abundance  iii  good  works.  In  every  way,  which  shall  make 
meu  behold  our  Lord  and  Master  iu  us.  As  even  the  smallest  water  can 
shine  out  the  stars  from  its  surface,  though  they  be  riot  there;  so,  though 
we  be  small,  and  the  circumference  of  our  being  is  diminished,  yet  thou 
hast  granted  us  to  reflect  thee  so  that  men  seeing  our  good  works  glorify 
our  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  Oh!  let  there  be  good  in  us  inwardly,  not  for 
our  sakes  alone.  May  the  fragrance  of  the  divine  indwelling  be  such  that 
all  men  shall  take  something  of  the  sweetness  of  our  experience. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  who  are  with 
thee  this  morning  in  this  place.  Thou  knowest  who  are  loved  of  thee.  All 
are  loved;  but  some  more  than  others.  Thou  knowest  who  lay  their  head 
iu  thy  bosom ;  and  thou  knowest  who  stay  further  and  further  off  from  thee. 
Thou  knowest  the  very  ones  that  shall  betray  thee.  Yet  look  upon  all  thy 
people  with  compassion  according  to  their  necessities.  And  we  pray  that 
ttiou  wilt  grant,  this  morning,  to  every  one  who  is  present,  that  he  may  hear 
in  his  own  spirit  his  own  name  called.  Even  as  Mary  heard  her  name  in 
the  garden,  and  knew  her  Lord,  whom  she  could  not  behold  by  the  seeing  of 
the  eye,  so  may  there  be  those  unspeakable  tokens  of  love  between  the© 
aud  every  one  that  shall  be  manifest  tokens  that  thou  art  theirs  and  that 
they  are  thine. 

We  pray  for  those  especially  who  are  lost.  Draw  near  to  them  as  need- 
ing thee  most.  Come  unto  those  who  are  most  faithless  in  duty,  as  needing 
more  inspiration.  Arouse  those  who  are  slumbering.  Quicken  those  who 
are  stupid.  Give  force  to  those  who  are  feeble.  Awaken  the  interest  of 
t/hose  who  are  indifferent.  Give  connectedness  to  those  who  are  but 
occasionally  Christian  or  Christ-like.  Grant  to  every  one  as  he  severalty 
n^eds. 

We  pray  not  for  those  who  glow  and  abound  in  joy.  We  pray  not  for 
those  who  have  enough,— to  whom  comes  the  summer  with  all  its  blessings. 
Look  upon  the  winter-stricken,  the  barren,  the  tempest-tossed  and  not  com- 
forted, the  unstable,  the  unhappy.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy 
mercies  to  rest  upon  all  such,  in  the  several  relations  in  which  thou  hast 
placed  them  in  thy  providence.  May  all  those  in  the  household  have  a 
blessing  of  God,— to  them  the  sweetest,  and  purest,  and  nearest  to  the 
heavenly  church  of  any  0:1  earth.  Grant  that  they  may  stand  in  its  midst, 
not  unmindful  of  all  the  goodness  of  God  to  them.  And  if  sorrow  shall 
come  to  thy  people,  grant  that  they  may  be  able  to  bear  it.  Even  as  a 
soldier  carries  his  shield  into  the  very  battle,  and  is  protected  by  it,  so  gi-ant 
that  the  love  of  God  may  be  their  shield  against  disappointments,  and 
trials,  and  burdens,  ani  all  those  irritations  which  require  fortitude  and 
continuance  in  well-doing.  Give  them  strength  to  overcome  all  opposition 
and  all  obstacles.  Grant  that  in  every  household  there  may  be  in  large 
measure  a  victory  of  Christian  hfe  over  all  temptations  to  envy,  or  maUce, 
or  quarrelsomeness,  or  honor  each  to  himself.  Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that 
meekness,  and  sweetness,  and  disinterestedness,  and  the  even  and  eontii>- 
nous  flow  thereof,  may  abound  iu  every  household.  And  may  we  have  a 
hepse  of  our  imperfection,  in  that  we  are  coming  short  every  day,  and 
that  we  fail  to  perform  our  duty  to  each  other.  How  few  of  us  wash  each 
other's  feet!  How  few  of  us  prefer  each  other  !  How  do  we,  in  our  gifts, 
only  bid  for  larger  gifts  to  be  received  again!    How  far  are  we  from  the 


226  TEE  BA  TTLE  OF  BENE  YOLENCE. 

grace  and  bounty  of  the  forgiving  God,  who  never  gives  but  to  forget  that 
he  has  given !  O  Lord  our  God,  we  pray  that  we  may  be  so  trained  and 
disciplined  in  the  household  in  the  royal  lore  of  love  that  we  may  be  able  to 
communicate  the  love  of  Christian  men  and  women  to  the  world  around 
about  us.  Oh,  grant  that  we  may  be  as  salt ;  that  we  may  be  as  light !  May 
we  carry  no  more  wounds  to  the  world  which  is  already  overthrown  and 
oast  down.  May  we  not  strike  with  the  violent.  May  we  not  add  envy,  and 
jealousy,  and  evil  feelings  to  the  turbulence  of  the  tide  that  already  sweeps 
down  toward  the  dead  sea  of  human  life.  Oh,  grant  that  we  may  briug 
silence  to  clamor,  and  music  to  discord,  an  d  better  living  to  quarrelsome- 
ness !  Grant  that  we  may  eo  teaching  men  patience  by  the  exhibition  of  it; 
that  we  may  be  meek,  aad  humble,  and  sweet-minded,  and  strong  to 
endure,  uuprovokable.  bearing  abundant  fruit,  so  that,  like  our  Master,  we 
may  have  not  only  peace  for  ourselves,  but  peace  to  give  to  others.  And 
so,  as  great  music  drowns  all  discord,  may  the  greatness  of  Christian  living 
around  about  hide  the  wickedness  and  sadness  of  human  life. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  enlarge  our  conceptions  of  Christian  life.  May 
we  seek  thee  in  the  heaven  al>ove,  and  in  our  hearts,  and  in  our  duties ;  and 
may  we  learn  to  believe  that  thou  art  reigning  in  the  heavens  by  the 
power  with  which  thou  dost  visit  us  in  our  limited  experiences  on  earth. 

O  thou  blessed  God  that  hast  promised  so  many  things,  fulfill  them  to 
us.  Thou  hast  fulfilled  some  of  them.  Thou  hist  strengthened  us  in  hours 
of  great  sorrow.  Thou  hast  given  us  patience  to  go  through  great  trials. 
We  have  been  taxed  and  tasked,  and  thou  hast  supported  us.  How  many 
hearts  are  able  to  bear  witness  th^t  but  for  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  tae  valley 
aaid  the  shadow  of  death  would  have  been  too  much  for  them!  Yfe  have 
stumbled  in  the  way,  but  they  have  comforted  us;  and  by  their  help  we 
have  endured.    By  the  grace  of  God  we  are  what  we  are  to-day. 

And  now,  we  pray  that  we  may  not  forget  all  the  lessons  of  the  past ; 
and  when  the  same  storm  comes  agiin,  may  we  not  have  the  same 
cowardice  because  thou  art  asleep.  Grant  that  we  may  look  forward  into 
life,  and  strive  hereafter  to  have  more  calm  and  steady  faith  in  Him  that 
rules  in  heaven  and  upon  earth.  May  we  trust  God  in  darkness  and  in  light ; 
when  we  are  prosperous,  and  when  we  are  in  poverty ;  when  we  are  uuder 
vehement  assault,  and  when  it  is  calm.  Grant  tha  under  all  circumstances 
we  may  find  thee  an  all-sufflcient  Saviour.  Grant  that  in  every  time  of 
need,  and  every  time  of  joy,  we  may  find  thee  near  to  U'^.  A?id  may  our  life 
be  as  the  life  of  those  who  hear  without  ceasing  the  chime  of  heavenly  bells ; 
who  are  always  in  reach  of  the  heavenly  fragrauce;  who  are  not  far  from 
that  heavenly  land  which  easts  its  twilight  and  comfort  into  the  stormy 
experience  of  this  lower  life. 

Our  children  call  us.  Our  parents  are  among  those  whose  voices  cry 
"Come,"  from  the  sacred  battlements.  How  many  companions  who  were 
dear  to  us  in  life  are  there,  and  behold  with  sorrow  and  sadness  our  fading 
faith  and  faint  courage,  and  cry  out,  "  How  blessed  are  they  who  persevere 
to  the  end,  and  are  Anally  saved!"  May  all  the  blessedness  of  that  other 
life,  and  our  hope  therein,  come  brightly  to  us  this  day,  and  day  by  day, 
until,  at  last,  having  overcome  every  adversary,  and  having  maintained 
our  place  in  the  field,  and  standing  after  the  battle  has  swept  by,  we  shall 
be  counted  as  worthy  to  enter  as  victors,  crowned,  not  by  our  own  hand, 
but  by  thine,  that  we  may  take  our  wreaths  and  laurels,  and  east  them  at 
thy  feet,  O  Captain  of  our  salvation,  Jesus,  Lord,  Master,  saying.  Not  unto 
us,  not  unto  us,  but  unto  thy  name  be  the  praise  and  the  glory  forever  and 
ever !      Amen. 


TEi:  BA  TTLE  OF  BENE  VOLENCE.  227 


PRAYEK  AFTER  THE  SERMON". 

Grant,  our  Father,  that  we  may  not  be  discouraged  by  the  greatness  of 
the  way.  We  stand  as  those  who  have  inherited  much  land,  but  know 
little  of  husbandry ;  and  when  we  look  out  upon  the  toughness  of  the  soil, 
and  upon  the  work  that  lies  before  us  in  subduing  it  all  to  fruit,  and  to 
flowers,  we  are  appalled.  If  we  had  not  known  that  more  were  for  us  than 
■were  against  us,  we  should  have  been  discouraged  long  ago.  If  we  believed 
that  thou  didst  shut  out  the  beams  of  thy  providence  from  us,  and  didst 
leave  us  to  wander  without  thy  guidance  or  love,  life  would  have  no  cheer 
nor  hope  for  us.  We  should  be  of  all  men  most  miserable.  For  what  has 
•  made  life  dear  but  cheer  and  hope?  We  have  been  encouraged  by  thoughts 
of  noble  characters  and  heroic  lives.  But  if  we  believed  that  there  was  an 
end  of  us  at  death,  who  could  weep  enough  upon  the  grave,  or  could  fiud 
comfort,  that  had  buried  his  de^d  ?  It  is  belief  in  resurrection  and  in  a  life 
beyond  that  sustains  us.  We  rejoice  that  it  is  not  to  be  such  a  life  as  we 
have  had  here.  On  earth,  we  have  limped ;  we  have  been  in  hospitals;  we 
have  beeu  woinided,  and  maimed;  we  have  been  attacked  on  the  right  and 
on  the  left;  we  have  been  overthrown.  And  then,  at  the  call  of  Gcd,  we 
have  forsaken  our  sin,  and  risen  up,  and  come  out  of  our  i^rison,  convoyed 
by  the  angels  of  heaven.  Through  thy  help  we  have  obtained  victories. 
Though  we  have  had  defeat,  we  have  had  triumph.  And  gradually  our 
passions  have  burned  out.  Nature  has  had  less  and  less  power  upon  us, 
and  grace  has  had  more  and  more;  and  at  last  we  have  reached  the  land 
of  true  benevolence.  O  Lord,  we  thank  thee  for  these  experiences  of  the 
jjower  and  royalty  of  divine  love  in  our  souls. 

And  now  ^e  pray  that  we  may  renew  our  evidences,  and  ask  ourselves  if 
we  are  like  Christ.  Why  do  we  wear  his  name?  Are  our  lives  full  of  bright 
suggestions  of  him  that  shine  on  every  hand?  Is  his  spirit  in  us  to  restrain, 
inspire,  imbue,  and  sweeten  life?  O  bring  us  to  thyself.  Lord  Jesus.  We 
do  not  wish  !o  go  home  with  nothing.  We  desire  to  carry  thither  many 
graces— til ueh  fruil.  We  would  not  go  home  so  as  by  fire;  but  even  so 
would  we  go  ratlier  than  be  banished  forever.  Oh,  for  a  victory  that  shall 
put  some  lauiel  on  our  brow,  so  that  thou  shalt  delight  in  us  as  thine  own ! 

We  know  how  it  is  with  our  children-.  Lord  Jesus.  How  we  love  them! 
How  we  loug  for  them!  How  pleased  our  pride  is  with  their  good!  How 
great  is  our  sh&me  at  that  which  is  evil  in  them !  How  we  carry  them  in  our 
arms!  And  are  we  better  than  thou  art?  Dost  thou  not  carry  us?  Art 
thou  not  longing  for  us,  and  working  in  us  to  will  and  to  do  the  things 
which  shaU  make  us  meet  for  glory?  We  beseech  thee  to  go  on  with  thy 
work.  Be  not  impatient  with  us.  Thou  that  didst  suffer  death  itself,  wilt 
thou  not  with  thy  sufferings  give  us  all  needed  things?  Teach  us  to  be  like 
thee.  Bring  us  through  life,  bring  us  victoriously  through  the  gate  of  death, 
bring  us  within  the  sounds  of  aogel  voices,  and  then,  within  the  circle  of 
thy  heart,  caught  by  the  inspiration  of  God,  and  flying  swifter  than  angels 
fly,  our  ransomed  souls  shall  go  home  to  thee  to  be  forever  with  the  Lord. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  the  praise  forever 
and  ever.    Amen. 


XIII. 

Bearing  One  Another's  Burdens. 


INVOCATION. 

Look  fH'acionsly  over  upon  ns  from  tliG  sphere  of  joy,  thou  that  art  the 
Head  and  Hope  of  the  world.  Give  us  something  of  thy  life — its  light  and 
its  joy.  Breathe  strength  from  the  Source  of  all  strength,  and  pvuity  from 
the  Heart  of  holiness.  Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  our  faint  thoughts  and 
feelings  may  he  divinely  quickened,  and  that  our  obscure  understandings 
may  be  enlightened.  May  we  rise  up  at  thy  touch;  may  we  hear  thy  call; 
may  we  feel  after  thee,  and  find  thee;  and  may  this  be  the  joy  of  the  Lord 
to-day,  that  we  have  walked  with  God.  Assist  us  in  the  services  of  instruc- 
tion. Give  forth  thine  influence,  that  we  may  enter  into  communion  with 
thee,  and  speak  to  thee  in  prayer  face  to  face.  Bless  our  fellowship  in  sacred 
song,  our  i-ejoicing  together,  and  our  praise  of  thee.  Help  us  in  ovu'  medita- 
tion together.  Go  home  with  us,  that  all  our  social  joys  to-day  may  be  blessed 
of  God.  And  grant  that  thus,  from  Sabbath  to  Sa])))ath,  we  may  be  prospered, 
and  prepared  for  that  rest  which  remaiueth  for  the  children  of  G  od.  "We  ask 
it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 

13. 


% 


BEAEII&  OIE  AIOTHER'S  EURDENS. 


"We  then  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of  the  ■weak, 
and  not  to  please  ourselves."— Rom.  XV.,  1. 

*'  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfill  the  law  of  Christ.  For  if 
a  man  think  himself  to  be  something  when  he  is  nothing,  he  deeeiveth  him- 
selt."— GAi.  VI..  2,  3. 


A  very  obvious  remark;  yet  one  that  needs  to  be  made  as  often 
as  any  other,  because  men  think  that  they  are  Christians,  often, 
"when  they  have  not  the  first  sign  of  inward  Christian  feeling,  A 
man  "  thinks  himself  to  be  something"  of  a  saint  when  he  lacks  every 
trait  of  saintship.  And  it  is  very  significant  that  this  remark  should 
follow  the  command  to  hear  one  another's  burdens^  which  is  evi- 
dently the  same  in  sentiment  with  the  command  of  the  apostle  in 
Eomans,  to  hear  one  another^ s  infirmities. 

What  is  it  to  hear  ?  If  we  were  reasoning  after  the  old  and  ig- 
norant philosophy,  we  might  be  tempted  to  say  that  it  is  to  take  the 
thing  away — to  have  it  transferred  to  us ;  in  other  words,  to  have 
it  "  imputed  "  to  us — as  if  that  could  be  done.  Bearing  another's 
burden  must  mean  such  a  carriage  as  shall  either  take  it  away 
from  his  consciousness,  or  shall  strengthen  him  to  carry  it.  If 
you  interpret  such  figures  literally,  it  is  possible  for  you  to  carry 
another's  burden.  If  you  see  a  little  child  overburdened,  and  ex- 
erting its  immature  strength,  it  is  quite  possible  for  you  to  relieve 
that  child  of  its  load,  and  so  to  bear  its  burden.  But  if  you  give, 
as  both  of  these  passages  do,  a  metaphorical  sense  to  this  thought,  and 
transfer  it  from  the  real  to  the  spiritual  realm,  you  cannot  literally 
take  another's  burden  from  him.  You  can,  however,  do  that  which 
is  equivalent  to  it:  you  can  carry  yourself  so  as  to  comfort  those 
who  are  in  sorrow ;  so  as  to  give  courage  to  those  who  are  in  de- 
spondency ;  so  as  to  give  light  and  hope  to  those  who  are  in  dark- 
ness and  despair.  You  can  bear  a  man's  burdens  by  carrying  him. 
When  we  carry  a  man,  it^s  not  necessarily  the  whole  outward  man, 
but  the  real  man,  the  man  of  thought  and  sympathy  and  feeling, 
that  we  carry.     We  are  to  so  conduct  ourselves  that  we  shall  carry 

StTNDAY  Morning,  June  2, 1871.  Lesson  :  Rom.  XIV.  Hymns  (Plymouth  CollecUon) : 
N08.  40,  658,  716. 


232  BEAMING  ONE  ANOTEEWS  BUEDBNS. 

people  who  are  in  distress  and  trouble  along  on  their  way.  That  is 
what  our  strength  was  given  for.  Ye  that  are  strong ;  ye  that  have 
made  attainments ;  ye  that  are  wise  and  circumspect ;  ye  that  are 
sinlessly  prudent ;  ye  that  in  benevolence  are  round  and  red  like 
the  setting  sun,  full-orbed,  its  work  accomplished ;  ye  that  are  strong 
in  virtue,  in  taste,  in  refinement,  in  orthodoxy ;  ye  that  are  good, 
and  know  it,  and  are  proud  of  it — your  special  business  is  to  bear 
the  weaknesses  of  the  weak,  and  to  carry  the  burdens  of  those  who 
>  are  overburdened.  It  is  the  type  of  attainment,  it  is  the  true  nature 
of  Christian  experience,  to  inspire  such  a  tendency,  to  foster  it,  to 
nourish  and  to  perfect  it. 

A  burden,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  physical  weight,  according  to  the 
original  signification  of  the  word.  A  burden  may  also  be  physical 
in  another  sense.  Anything  which  annoys,  or  which  inspires  paiLi 
of  any  kind,  may  be  regarded  as  a  burden.  Men  or  women 
may  therefore  be  born  into  life  with  physical  burdens  which  they 
cannot  shake  off  nor  rid  themselves  of,  while'  yet,  your  sympathy 
and  kindness  may  help  them  to  bear  those  burdens.  There  are 
many  things  which  we  look  upon  almost  unthinkingly.  If  one  is 
born  into  life  inheriting  the  sins  of  his  ancestors,  in  a  coiidition  of 
permanent  unhealth;  if  he  is  feeble  of  digestion,  of  lung,  or  of 
brain,  that  is  indeed  a  burden.  It  may  be  that  one  is  born  into  life 
a  dwarf,  or  humpbacked,  or  with  a  certain  awkward  hugeness  of 
size.  It  may  be  that  he  is  born  with  deformities  of  face.  His  fea- 
tures may  be  marked  distressingly.  He  may  have  Byron's  plague-^-  J  ^^XL/u 
club-foot.  He  may  have  that  which  is  as  hard  to  bear  as  any  ^ 
of  these  things — excessive  homeliness.  One  may  be  born  with  an 
intrinsic  clumsiness  of  gait.  There  is  what  may  be  called  con- 
genital awkwardness,  such  as  old  Doctor  Sam  Johnson  had,  and 
never  got  over. 

If  you  take  pains  to  observe,  you  will  see  that  the  number  of 
persons  suffering  in  this  world  is  very  small  until  you  yourself  begin 
to  suffer;  and  then  it  is  astamshing  how  many  you  will  find  that 
are  suffering  in  the  same  way  that  you  are.  If  a  man  has  autumnal 
catarrh,  he  will  think  that  about  every  other  man  has  it,  before  he 
gets  through  many  years ;  although,  before,  it  scarcely  occurred  to 
him  that  there  was  such  a  thing  in  the  world.  When  once  you 
suffer  an  infirmity  yourself,  your  sympathy  leads  you  to  detect  a 
■great  many  others  that  suffer. 

Now,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  suffering  in  this  world  that  we  are 
apt  to  pass  over.  We  that  are  strong,  we  that  are  handsome,  we 
that  are  healthy,  we  that  have  no  deformity  to  conceal  or  that  ia 
unconcealable — we  slight  those  who  have  to  bear  inconveniences 


BEAMING  ONE  ANOTHEB'S  BURDENS.  233 

through  life ;  who  are  perpetually  chafed  through  pride,  or  vanity, 
or  disease  of  one  kind  or  another.  But  it  is  for  us  to  look  upon 
those  who  are  less  fortunate  or  less  comely  than  we  are,  with  such 
Christian  sympathy  and  compassion  that  we  shall  bear  their 
burdens. 

All  right-minded  parents  early  instruct  their  children  neyer  to 
ridicule  persons  who  are  unfortunate  without  any  fault  of  their 
own — those  who  have  any  deformed  or  disfigured  part.  Where 
a  man  has  any  such  misfortune  for  which  he  is  not  respon- 
sible, it  is  worse  than  brutal  for  children  to  make  it  a  matter  of 
ridicule.  Kindness,  delicacy,  and  helpfulness  are  due  from  us  to 
such  persons.  And  yet,  how  many  young  Christians,  in  a  pro- 
miscuous gathering  of  persons  upon  a  picnic  or  on  a  holiday,  feel 
that  because  they  are  Christians  it  is  their  business  to  pay 
especial  attention  to  those  who  are  the  least  favored !  How  rarely 
do  you  see  such  a  fulfillment  of  Christian  duty!  How  much 
more  often  do  you  see  the  love  of  art  manifested  by  young  men  in 
the  picking  out  of  the  handsome  face,  the  fair  complexion,  the 
comely  form,  the  bewitching  eye,  and  the  penciled  eyebrow,  while 
the  poor,  half-crippled  girl,  pale  of  cheek,  from  whom  all  traces  of 
beauty  have  passed  away,  sits  in  the  corner  with  no  one  to  do  her 
reverence ! 

Ye  that  are  strong,  bear  with  the  weak !  Ye  that  are  strong, 
bear  Avith  other's  infirmities !  Ye  that  are  strong,  bear  the  burdens 
of  men !  Honor,  by  your  sympathy  and  kindness,  those  who  have 
such  an  unequal  lot  in  life,  and  make  piety  something  else  besides 
a  mere  sentimental  experience  ! 

Men's  outward  conditions,  also,  constitute  burdens  and  infirmi- 
ties which  come  within  the  scope  of  the  Christian  spirit.  Men,  of 
whom  life  is  full,  who  do  not  know  how  to  take  care  of  themselves, 
and  whom  we  consequently  blame,  belong  to  this  category.  "We 
that  are  thrifty  ;  we  that  know  how  to  tie  the  bag  so  tight  that  the 
hand  of  charity  cannot  pick  the  knot — how  we  look  with  contempt 
on  men  who  are  so  shiftless  that  they  cannot  tie  the  bag  so  but  that 
everything  which  is  in  it  leaks  out,  and  leaves  the  bag  empty  !  We 
have  no  patience  with  shiftless  folks  who  do  not  know  how  to  get 
along,  who  cannot  take  care  of  themselves,  and  who  are  always  a 
burden  to  somebody. 

But  do  you  suppose  that  you  are  half  as  much  annoyed  by  their 
shiftlessncss  as  they  are  themselves  ?  They  have  to  take  care  of  it 
all  their  lives  long,  and  you  have  to  take  care  of  it  only  once  in  a 
while.  Do  you  suppose  a  man  who  fails  to  look  through  the  com- 
plicated affairs  of  life  does  it  on  account  of  any  vicious  spite  ?    Do 


234  BEABING  ONE  ANOTHER S  BUBBEN8. 

you  suppose  a  man  tliat  does  not  know  how  to  calculate  to-day  so 
as  to  go  successfully  through  to-morrow  is  guilty  of  a  special  sin 
that  he  meant  to  commit  ?  Nobody  is  so  hard  toward  shiftless 
people  as  those  tight,  prudent  people  who  are  never  shiftless.  It 
would  do  you  good  if  God  would  make  you  shiftless  for  about  a 
month,  and  put  you  where  you  would  receive  the  kicks  and  cuffs 
of  men's  lips.  Then  when  you  got  back  to  yourself  again,  you 
would  have  some  compassion  on  men  who  are  weak,  and  do  not 
know  how  to  get  along. 

It  is  a  burden  to  be  out  of  work,  and  not  knew  where  to  find 
anything  to  do.  It  is  an  easy  way  of  getting  rid  of  men  that  are 
out  of  work  to  say,  "  Go  West — go  West,"  as  if  a  man  could  fly ;  but 
it  is  not  the  Christian  way  of  treating  them.  We  are  commanded 
to  bear  one  another's  burdens.  It  is  a  burden  to  be  obliged  to  fol- 
low an  uncongenial  occupation.  There  are  men  who  ar6  not 
adapted  to  the  pursuits  which  they  are  following.  There  are  men 
who  have  never  found  out  their  true  vocation.  There  are  men  who 
are  ignorant  of  what  they  were  sent  into  the  world  for.  Where 
men  who  are  endowed  with  sensibility,  and  taste,  and  a  power  to 
work  in  ideas,  are  obliged  to  drudge  and  perform  menial  services  for 
which  they  are  not  fitted,  they  are  subjected  to  a  heavy  burden. 
And  under  circumstances  where  divine  providence  shuts  men  up  to 
things  that  are  distasteful  to  them ;  where  they  are  under-ranked ; 
where  they  are  by  nature  qualified  for  higher  spheres,  but  are  com- 
pelled to  serve  in  lower  ones,  they  are  entitled  to  our  sympathy  and 
encouragement.  But  we  say  to  such  people,  "You  ought  not 
to  feel  above  your  work  ;  you  ought  to  know  your  place."  This  is 
very  insulting;  it  is  adding  injury  to  misfortune;  it  is  most 
unchristian. 

I  never  see  an  ill-harnessed  horse,  in  a  hot  summer  day,  whose 
collar  grinds  and  grinds  till  the  skin  is  gone  and  the  blood  comes, 
but  that  must  toil  on,  his  ignominious  driver  helping  him  now  and 
then  with  an  extra  whack,  as  he  stops  to  cool  his  fevered  shoulder — I 
never  see  this  without  indignation.  Nor,  when  I  am  in  my  better 
moods,  do  I  ever  hear  without  indignation  the  insults  which  are 
heaped  upon  those  men  who  are  wrongly  placed  in  life,  and  who, 
goaded  on  in  their  avocations,  without  cheer  or  sympathy,  are  dis- 
contented, and  fret  and  chafe,  and  fain  would  be  released  from  the 
tasks  which  are  imposed  upon  them. 

We  all  think,  "  Blessed  are  the  poor" ;  and  yet,  if  there  be  one 
blessing  which  we  would  prefer  not  to  have  more  than  another,  it  is 
that  of  poverty.  How  much  we  exhort  our  children  from  it !  How 
seldom  do  we  feel  it  to  be  our  duty  to  bear  the  burdens  of  men  who 


BJSA  RIXG  ONE  ANOTHER'S  B  URDENS.  235 

are  poor  !  "  The  destruction  of  the  poor  is  their  poverty."  In  the 
end  all  the  losses  of  society  come  down  on  the  poor.  In  the  end 
the  taxes  are  gathered  off  from  the  poor.  In  the  end  the  vices  and 
crimes  in  society  avenge  themselves  on  the  poor.  As  we  look  upon 
it,  sometimes  we  mark  it  as  the  result  of  crime,  and  sometimes  as 
the  result  of  weakness.  Here  and  there,  in  single  instances,  we 
pity  it.  We  throw  a  shilling  into  a  man's  hand,  not  so  much  be- 
cause we  desire  to  serve  him,  as  because  it  is  the  cheapest  way  of 
getting  rid  of  the  trouble  of  serving  him.  How  seldom  do  we  bear 
men's  burdens.  How  seldom  do  we  find  a  Christian  man  who  takes 
up  a  poor  man  into  his  heart,  and  understands  him,  and  really  lives 
by  him  in  such  a  way  that  in  the  judgment-day  that  poor  man  can 
turn  to  Christ,  and  say,  "I  never  should  have  been  here  if  that  man 
had  not  carried  me  by  his  love.  He  bore  my  burden  that  was  too 
heavy  for  me.     He  bore  me  under  that  burden." 

How  often  do  we  look  upon  men  who  are  in  the  stress  of  life^^ 
and  overworked,  without  any  regard  to  their  constitution !  How 
often  do  we  bitterly  come  down  upon  men,  striking  them  with  the 
fang  of  rebuke,  when,  if  we  could  see  their  inward  liTe,  and  could 
see  what  a  taxation  they  bear,  and  how  ill  adapted  they  are  to  en- 
dure the  burdens  that  are  put  upon  them,  we  should  be  far  more 
likely  to  pity  them !  With  what  relentlessness  and  heedlessness  do 
we  make  men's  burdens  heavier,  that  are  already  as  much  as  they 
can  endure ! 

Where  men  are  assailed,  justly  or  unjustly  as  the  case  may  be 
(seldom  is  it  that  judgment  is  meted  out  with  anything  like  fairness 
in  this  world) ;  where  men  are  reviled ;  where  they  are  set  at 
naught ;  especially  where  they  who  have  been  prospered  have  come 
down  ;  where  nien  of  good  reputation  are  found  out  in  some  wrong, 
and  are  exposed  to  the  full  battery  of  rebuke — under  such  circum- 
stances, how  seldom  is  there  a  pity  which,  looking  upon  their 
suffering,  comes  to  them  in  the  hour  of  their  distress,  of  their 
disgrace,  and  it  may  be  of  their  merited  punishment,  simply  be- 
cause they  are  men,  suffering  ! 

We  see  a  man  stripped,  taken  out  of  the  things  that  are  con- 
genial to  his  life,  thrown  into  a  van,  whirled  away  to  the 
Island,  or  to  some  penitentiary,  provided  with  an  ignominious 
dress,  and  herded  with  criminals.  He  has  walked  in  the  places  of 
prosperity,  he  has  done  wrong,  and  he  has  gone  to  hell  on  earth. 
People  say,  "Served  him  right;  and  if  a  dozen  that  were 
around  him  had  been  sent  too,  it  would  have  served  them  right." 
Looking  at  him,  we  thank  God  that  we  are  not  as  that  "jail-bird" 
is.   How  ruthlessly  we  take  our  dagger-tongues  and  smite  those  who. 


236  BEAMING  ONE  ANOTEEE>S  BUEBENS. 

by  their  own  willful  misconduct,  or  through  their  infirmities,  have 
fallen  into  crime !  How  seldom  do  we  think  of  men,  in  looking 
upon  them,  "  They  are  God's  children,  and  my  brethren  still" ! 

Still  more  emphatically  are  men's  malformed  faculties  or  dispo- 
sitions burdens  to  them,  and  to  others  also !  A  timid  spirit  that  is 
forever  coming  short  through  want  of  courage ;  an  irresolute  mind 
that  never  completes  anything  on  account  of  incessant  changeable- 
ness ;  a  violent  temper  that  seems  set  on  fire  of  hell,  and  scatters 
infernal  sparks  on  every  side ;  a  selfish  pride  against  which,  as 
against  the  side  of  a  rugged  mountain,  many  fall  and  are  dashed  to 
pieces ;  equivocation,  innate  or  educated ;  inherent  cunning ;  lying 
dispositions ;  cruelty,  inbred,  radicated ;  coldness  ;  hardness ;  av- 
arice ;  stinginess ;  violent  appetites,  running  to  strong  drink ;  out- 
rageous hunger,  running  to  gluttony — these  things  are  burdens  to 
men. 

"  Well"  you  say,  "  do  you  mean  that  we  are  to  take  the  whole 
Newgate  calendar  of  vices,  and  say  that  a  bad  man  is  merely  an  un- 
fortunate creature,  and  that  we  are  to  sit  down  and  shed  tears  over 
him  ?"  No  ;•  but  I  do  say  that  there  is  no  limitation  in  the  nature 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  or  in  any  nature  of  true  Christian  sym- 
pathy. Whatever  is  a  burden,  whether  it  be  natural  or  acquired, 
whether  it  be  within  or  without,  to  any  man,  you  are  to  attempt  to 
bear  in  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  You  are  to  bear  his 
infirmity,  and  help  him,  in  such  a  way  that  he  shall  not  be  de- 
stroyed. There  is  nothing  so  criminal  and  vicious,  nothing  so 
wicked,  nothing  so  mean,  but  that  it  is  the  province  of  love  to 
cure  it.  Ye  are  God's  medicines  sent  forth  into  a  world  that  is 
filled  with  all  manner  of  burdens  by  reason  of  sin,  or  misfortune, 
or  some  providential  cause ;  and  whether  the  burden  be  traceable 
to  providence,  or  to  circumstances,  or  to  the  man's  own  fault,  there 
is  not  a  man  who  lives  on  the  globe  who  is  not  a  fit  object  of 
your  compassion  and  sympathy  and  helpfulness.  Whether  you  live 
in  the  house  with  those  who  are  carrying  burdens  or  not,  whether 
they  are  in  your  neighborhood  or  not,  whether  they  are  by  the  way- 
side, or  wherever  they  are,  it  is  not  for  y6u  to  set  your  face  against 
them.  There  is  an  atoning  duty  which  devolves  upon  every  man. 
Love  is  atonement.  Love  is  burden- bearing.  Love  is  sanity.  The 
love  of  God  is  our  life,  and  our  soul ;  and  that  which  he  has  done 
and  is  doing  for  us  we  are  to  do  for  each  other.  We  are  to  make 
whatever  we  have  of  heart,  of  intelligence,  and  of  strength,  avail 
not  for  ourselves  alone,  but  for  those  who  are  around  about  us;  for 
those  that  need  it,  and  especially  for  those  that  need  it  most. 

Consider  how  you  would  act  if  these  vices  and  monstrous  pas- 


BEARING  ONE  ANOTHEWS  BURDENS.  237 

sions,  instead  of  being  a  part  of  the  machinery  of  rational,  intelli- 
gent and  responsible  agents,  wei-e  transformed  into  the  actual 
forms  of  wild  beasts.  Is  it  intemperance?  Suppose  you  figure 
to  yourself  a  lion  in  ambush  springing  out  upon  a  man ;  suppose 
you  saw  the  man  trembling  under  the  lion's  paw,  how  would 
you  feel  ?  But  suppose,  instead  of  being  a  lion,  it  was  Satan  in  the 
form  of  an  intemperate  appetite,  worse  a  thousand  times  to  the  man 
than  any  real  lion  of  the  desert  ?  You  would  run  to  rescue  a 
man  from  an  outside  lion :  will  you  not  do  anything  for  a  man 
who  has  one  inside  ? 

What  if  it  were  sickness  ?  What  if  it  were  a  man  swollen  with 
dropsy  ?  What  if  it  were  a  man  crying  out  for  water  with  lips 
parched  by  a  merciless  fever  ?  "Would  you  not  moisten  his  tongue 
and  his  brow,  and  fan  the  fever  away  ?  But  is  any  fever  of  the 
body  so  pitiable  as  the  fevers  which  come  upon  the  soul  ?  Would 
4'ou  have  compassion  upon  a  man  who  was  attacked  by  an  outward 
disease,  and  none  for  a  man  whose  soul  was  diseased  ?  Are  there  no 
bearers  of  men's  inward  burdens  ?  Are  not  these  burdens  to  be 
borne,  even  though  men  may  have  brought  them  upon  them- 
selves ?  Are  not  bad  men  punished  by  what  they  suffer  from 
their  transgressions  ?  Is  it  not  enough  that  such  men  have  to  live 
with  themselves,  and  take  the  consequences  of  their  own  actions  ? 
And  is  not  a  man  the  consequences  of  whose  conduct  are  going 
on,  working,  and  laying  up  wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath,  to 
be  pitied  ?  Is  not  he  to  be  pitied  who  for  his  transgression  has  to 
bear  the  infliction  of  law,  of  public  sentiment,  and  of  his  own  na- 
ture ?  In  all  w^ays  of  looking  at  it,  he  is  most  to  be  pitied  who  is 
most  variously  and  most  hopelessly  wicked. 

There  is  an  unchristian  way  and  a  Christian  way  of  treating  all 
wicked  people.  The  unchristian  way  is  to  experience  great  disgust, 
and  even  hatred,  for  them,  and  to  visit  upon  them  what  may  be 
called  a  virtuous  rebuke.  Now,  a  virtuous  rebuke  of  evil  is  not  only 
right  but  is  commanded;  and  yet  a  virtuous  rebuke  of  evil  men  or 
evil  women  is  nowhere  commanded.  We  often  permit  ourselves  to 
drift  into  slighting  remarks,  into  the  dissection  of  men,  into  the 
registration  of  their  faults  and  failings. 

.  There  is  an  innocent  banter,  there  is  a  kind  using  of  ourselves, 
as  when  a  mother  pats  her  child,  and  the  child  knows  that  it  is 
not  chastised;  or  as  when  the  mother  pinches  her  child,  or  in  any 
way  disports  with  it,  and  throws  it  hither  and  thither,  and  seems  to 
neglect  it,  and  makes  believe  that  she  is  displeased  with  it.  All 
these  ways  love  knows.  There  is  a  large  and  manly  way  of  indulg- 
ing in  this  sort  of  thing  which  hurts  no  one,  and  leaves  no  sting 


'Z'6S  BEARING  ONE  ANOTHER'S  BURDENS. 

behind.  I  do  not  think  that  you  need  to  treat  your  friends  as  though 
they  were  crystal  glass  ware,  and  fear  to  put  them  in  hot  water  or 
steam  lest  they  fly  to  pieces.  There  is  a  robust  and  manly  carriage 
in  this  direction  which  a  true  and  generous  nature  seldom  errs  in. 

But  that  other  thing ;  that  calm  and  conscientious  dissection  of 
people ;  that  gluttony  of  carrion ;  that  most  righteous  putting 
of  people  into  hell ;  that  utter  indifference  to  people ;  that 
analyzing  of  them ;  that  exposing  of  them ;  the  narration 
of  their  faults ;  the  repetition  of  them ;  the  arguing  of  them ; 
the  gathering  force  in  the  statemeint  and  restatement  of  them ; 
the  discussion  of  men's  characters  till  you  have  made  mis- 
creant sinners  of  them,  and  set  them  down  there,  and  lifted 
yourself  up  here,  so  that  there,  is  a  gulf  between  you  and  them 
which  is  wider  than  that  which  was  between  Abraham  and  the  man 
in  hell — how  shall  I  describe  that  ? 

How  many  persons  there  are  that  consider  themselves  Chris-^ 
tians,  who,  because  it  is  true,  say,  of  a  man,  "  He  lied ;  he  stole  ;  he 
was  drunk,"  just  as  if  the  fact  itself  were  not  the  worst  thing,  and 
did  not  make  compassion  more  obligatory !  Just  as  though  a  man 
were  not  a  sacred  thing  in  the  eye  of  God,  even  when  he  is  in  trans- 
gression !  Just  as  if  a  man  were  not  the  more  to  be  pitied,  the 
worse  he  is !  And  where  can  you  find  instruction  for  any  such  feel- 
ing, or  thinking,  or  doing,  as  characterizes  your  conduct  toward 
others  ? 

Still  less  have  we  a  right  to  separate  ourselves  from  bad  men,  and 
refuse  to  have  anything  to  do  with  them,  keeping  ourselves  rigor- 
ously away  from  them.  You  know  that  that  man  forged.  You 
know  that  he  was  convicted  of  counterfeiting.  You  know  that  he 
was  once  a  penetentiary  man.  You  know  that  he  has  been  a  smug- 
gler. And  if,  in  the  street,  you  see  him  coming  doAvn  on  this  side, 
you  quietly  go  over  to  your  grocer's  on  the  other  side.  You  will 
not  come  near  him.  You  keep  away  from  him.  You  do  not  pity 
him.  You  simply  have  contempt  for  him.  Is  that  right  ?  Is  that 
following  Christ?  No  man  follows  Christ  who  separates  himself 
from  sinners.  It  is  the  distinctive  peculiarity  of  our  Lord's  example 
that  when  he  went,  even  on  festive  occasions,  to  dine,  as  for  in- 
stance, with  Matthew,  his  chief  disciple  at  that  time  in  the  matter 
of  property,  he  was  followed  thither  by  a  throng  of  publicans  and 
sinners.  "Publicans"  were  tax-gatherers,  and  extortioners;  "sin- 
ners "  were  courtesans  of  the  street.  Christ's  conduct  was  such  that 
these  people  everywhere  followed  him,  to  hear  what  he  had  to  say. 
His  kindness  to  them  begat  in  them  a  yearning  sympathy  toward 
him ;  and  when  he  Avent  in  the  most  public  manner  into  a  house 


BEAMING  ONE  ANOTHER'' S  BUEDENS.  239 

they  went  in  too ;  and  they  were  not — on  account  of  his  autliority, 
apparently — cast  out.  The  Pharisees  said,  "  Why  doth  your  Master 
eat  with  publicans  and  sinners  ?"  His  answer  was,  "  I  came  not  to 
call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance.  They  that  are  whole 
need  not  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick."  A  virtuous  heart  is 
the  doctor  of  a  vicious  heart.  A  godly  man  is  the  physician  of  an  un- 
godly man.  You  are  sent,  not  to  efFulge  in  the  light  of  your  own 
self-enjoyment.  The  first  duty  of  being  good  is  reflex  :  help  those 
who  ai'e  not  good.  This  was  the  teaching  of  the  Master.  And  you 
cannot  do  it  if  you  make  separations  so  that  the  good  always 
live  with  the  good,  and  the  bad  always  live  with  the  bad.  How, 
under  such  circumstances,  shall  the  heart  of  goodness  heal  the 
heart  of  badness  ?  Bear  one  another's  burdens.  "If  ye  love  those 
that  love  you,"  saith  the  Master,  "  what  thank  have  ye  ?  Do  not  even 
the  publicans  so  ?"  That  is  not  being  Christian  men  which  leads 
you  simply  to  love  goodness :  but  that  which  leads  you  to  find  in 
goodness  more  mercy  and  more  sympathy  than  you  had  before.  By 
the  love  of  goodness  you  should  become  the  creator  of  it  in  those 
tliat  are  deficient  in  it.  The  completion,  the  rounding  up,  of  the 
love  of  virtue  in  you  consists  in  its  making  you  more  tender  to 
those  who  are  unvirtuous ;  more  patient  to  those  who  are  faulty ; 
more  burden-bearing  to  those  who  cannot  carry  their  own  burdens. 
Not  he  is  the  best  man  who  merely  cleanses  himself,  but  he  who 
by  cleansing  himself  teaches  others  how  to  be  cle*»^-'   '— •   ^"^^    ' 

But  it  will  be  objected,  "Are  we  not  com*''-*»^^ed  to  abhor  that 
which  is  evil,  and  to  cleave  to  that  which  >  -^^^^^'^^  Certainly ;  but 
are  we  anywhere  commanded  to  abh(V"  ^i^^^rs  because  we  abhor 
sin  ?  What  is  it  to  abhor  eviL?  -=5  it  the  sudden  disgust  which 
arises,  which  ought  to  be  moT^'  '^-^rj*  and  which  is  designed  to  put 
us  upon  our  guard,  and  ir- aspire  us  with  self-defensory  power,  till 
we  have  time  to  Is^'^'iH"  course  more  deliberately?  Every  man 
ouo-ht  at  the  first '"'^'ipulse  of  evil  to  feel  repugnance  at  it;  but  that 
is  -aot  the  higher  kind  of  abhorrence  of  evil  It  is  an  inspiration  of 
a  lower  kind.  He  hates  evil  most  who  hates  it  so  that  he  Avill  anni- 
hilate it.     There  is  animal  hatred,  and  there  is  divine  hatred. 

Two  men  hate  malaria.  One  says,  "I  will  not  settle  here;  I 
will  pack  up  my  things,  and  clear  out."  The  other  says,  "I 
hate  it;  but  I  am  going  to  work  to-morrow  morning,  with  my 
whole  force,  to  drain  that  marsh."  He  goes  to  work  and  digs  a 
ditch  through  it,  risking  his  health,  and  removes  the  stagnant 
water.  Who  hated  the  malaria  most,  the  one  who  ran  away  from 
it,  or  the  one  who  cured  it?  Is  not  cure  a  witness  of  dislike  more 
than  neglect? 


240  BEABING  ONE  ANOTHER'S  BURDENS. 

A  mother  hates  the  disease  that  is  in  her  child ;  but  does  she 
abandon  the  child,  saying,  "I  hate  morbid  conditions  of  every 
kind,"  and  let  the  child  die,  as  a  testimony  to  her  dislike  of  viola- 
tions of  natural  law  ?  Is  it  not  a  better  testimony  to  her  hatred  of 
disease,  that  night  and  day  she  lingers  over  the  little  sufferer  till 
she  brings  it  back  to  good  health  ?  Is  not  that  a  better  way  of 
hating  disease  than  the  other  would  be?  That  is  the  true  hatred 
of  sin  which  kills  it  by  kindness. 

Two  men  meet  an  ugly,  uncombed,  venomous  little  specimen  of 
boyhood.  Did  you  ever  see  a  boyhood  that  was  not  a  mystery  of 
providence  ?  Are  not  boys  always  in  men's  way  ?  Evidently  boys 
have  no  part,  no  place,  and  no  function  in  society.  If  they  could 
be  shot,  at  birth,  like  an  arrow,  straight  up  to  manhood,  that  would 
be  another  matter ;  but  they  are  not.  And  did  you  ever  know  a 
neighborhood  that  had  not  the  worst  boys  in  the  world  ?  Did  you 
ever  know  a  neighbor  whose  boys  were  not  the  worst  that  ever 
lived  ?  Well,  here  is  a  lying,  fighting,  thieving  urchin ;  and  these 
two  men  meet  him;  one  hates  him  so  that  he  kicks  him,  and 
says,  "  Get  out  of  the  way !"  He  hates  him  so  that  he  cannot  re- 
strain his  foot  nor  his  lips.  And  the  other  hates  his  ways  so  that 
he  says,  "  Come  here,  my  boy.  Is  there  nobody  that  cares  for  you  ?" 
He  pities  him.  Finding  that  he  has  no  father  nor  mother,  he  says, 
"Go  wit!  me  fnd  see  if  I  cannot  make  a  man  of  you."  He  takes 
iiini  ^oi^.  ...^  •  votes  his  time  to  that  boy,  and  sticks  by  him  until 
iv  has  cujeu  .!-,..  o»On6  lying  and  fighting  and  thieving  propensi- 
ti-  ^,  and  made  a  man  ».^  ^1^.  Now  I  want  to  know  which  hated 
wickedness  the  most— the--  r^e  that  kicked  it,  or  the  one  that  cured 
it?. 

•  "Abhor  that  which  is  evil.  -  .^t  is  the  sign  of  abhorring 
evil  ?  That  you  take  measures  to  remu>.  -  it.  If  there  is  evil  in  a 
man,  do  by  that  man  as  God  does  by  yoLt  \aar  his  infirmities; 
bear  his  burdens;  bear  his  sins.  By  the  powei  of  Uie  -roodness 
which  is  in  your  heart,  as  far  as  in  you  lies  lift  L,  .  ,,^r:'  ^  his 
degradation,  and  cleanse  him. 

Two  women  hate,  above  all  things,  the  loathsome  sores,  the' 
ichor,  the  smells,  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature,  as  they  mauifeSi 
themselves  in  hospitals;  and  one  of  them  goes  home,  saying,  "I 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  them."  She  is  influenced  by  senti- 
ment, and  she  says,  "  There  is  in  my  mind  a  poetic  sense  of  beauty 
which  God  has  infixed  there;  and  I  abhor  such  dirty,  nasty  places." 
Does  she  abhor  them  as  much  as  the  other  woman,  who,  gathering 
her  white  robes  of  innocence  about  her,  goes  among  men  wlio  are 
rude  and  coarse,  and  patiently  dresses  their  sores,  which  turn  the 


BEARING  ONE  ANOTBEB'8  BURDENS.  241 

very  flesh,  almost,  with  disgust,  and  by  the  sweet  spirit  of  all- 
tempering  love  maintains  her  place  ?  One  comes  in  and  is  healed, 
and  goes  out  again,  and  another  comes  in;  and  through  the  months 
of  the  long  weary  war  she  gives  her  life  to  relieve  the  suffering. 
And  does  not  she  resemble  the  Master,  who  bore  our  sins  and 
carried  our  sorrows  ?  Who  are  you  that  dare  put  yourselves  over 
against  the  vices  and  crimes  of  an  evil  man,  and  say,  "  I  am 
judgment-day  to  you!  I  condemn  you  for  your  wickedness"? 
"  Vengeance  is  mine,  saith  the  Lord."  We  have  never  had  it  lent 
to  us  in  the  slightest  degree.  Yet,  if  one  could  have  the  chamber 
of  judgment  uncovered  in  him,  and  see  all  those  thoughts,  all 
those  vivid  and  lurid  emotions  of  hatred,  which  men's  wrong-doing 
has  excited ;  if  one  could  see  how  he  has  gone  on  from  day  to  day, 
and  from  week  to  week,  and  from  month  to  month,  and  from  year 
to  year,  till  his  heart  is  merciless  and  vengeful,  what  a  revelation  it 
would  be  to  him !  What  a  literature  will  yet. one  day  be  deciphered 
from  the  stony  hearts  of  unmerciful  men  who  have  lived  to  con- 
demn, without  pity  or  remorse  or  any  salvable  influence,  their 
fellow  men !  And  all  this  time  God  has  been  patient  with  them. 
He  has  forgiven  their  debts  while,  they  were  taking  their  brother 
by  the  throat,  and  saying,  inexorably,  '*'  Pay  me  what  thou  owest." 
They  have  demanded  purity  and  uprightness  and  justice;  and  yet 
they  have  been  pensioners  on  God's  patience  and  gentleness  on 
account  of  their  own  misdeeds  and  faults. 

It  is  a  terrible  thing  for  one  man  to  speak  evil  of  another ;  and 
I  think  it  is  worse  to  think  it.  If  you  speak  it,  the  man  has  time 
and  opportunity  to  defend  himself;  but  he  cannot  trace  the 
thought.  It  is  neither  heroic  nor  manly  to  permit  in  yourselves 
judgments  which  nobody  can  reverse.  It  is  a  sign  of  Christian 
manhood  where  one,  though  all  the  selfish  instincts  of  his  nature  im- 
pel him  to  do  otherwise,  thinks  mercifully,  and  waits  to  be  gracious, 
and,  if  he  cannot  form  an  opinion  without  severity,  withholds  his 
judgment  till  he  can  form  one  that  shall  have  more  mercy  in  it. 
Take  care  of  the  secret  thoughts,  of  the  inward  judgments,  which 
you  form  of  men. 

But  is  there  no  danger  that  we  shall  be  corrupted  ourselves  ?  Is 
there  not  often  in  evil  a  seductive  quality  ?  Are  there  not  many 
sins  of  passion  which  are  inflammatory  and  infectious  ?  Are  the 
young  to  rush  headlong  under  influences  which  may  sweep  them 
away  before  they  are  aware  of  their  danger  ?  Oh,  no.  I  do  not 
mean  that  this  duty  is  to  be  administered  heedlessly.  I  do  not 
mean  that  there  is  to  be  no  caution,  no  forethought,  no  calculation. 
I  remember  that  He  who  told  us  to  be  harmless  as  doves,  also  told  us 


242  BEAEING  ONE  ANOTHEE>S  BUBDEN8. 

to  be  cunnmg  as  serpents.  We  are  to  discriminate.  That  wliicli  a  man 
can  do  a  child  cannot  do.  That  which  is  safe  for  a  young  man  is  not 
safe  for  an  innocent  virgin  child.  I  know  that  there  are  evils  done 
in  places  where  men  should  not  venture  themselves.  I  know  that 
those  who  have  fiillen  by  intemperance  ouglit  not  to  seek  their  com- 
panions in  drinking  saloons  where  they  may  fall  again.  There 
should  be  discretion  used  in  regard  to  measures  of  active  relief  which 
are  to  be  taken.  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  we  are  to  turn  our 
houses,  regardless  of  our  households,  into  hospitals,  or  correctional 
tribunals.  I  merely  say  that  our  actuating  spirit,  our  inner  heart 
and  life,  must  not  be  disgust  and  hatred  and  revulsion.  However 
prudent  may  be  the  mode  in  which  we  carry  it  into  effect,  the  root- 
feeling  of  our  nature  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  •  divine  in- 
junctions, "Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens;"  "  Bear  the  infirmities 
of  the  weak,  and  not  please  yourselves." 

I  remark,  in  view  of  these  practical  suggestions,  that  the  condi- 
tion of  the  whole  world,  and  the  method  by  which  it  is  being  devel- 
oped in  the  providence  of  God,  imperatively  demand  that  evil  shall 
be  cured  by  pitifulness,  and  by  the  medicinal  power  of  goodness.  I 
admit  that  there  is  a  place  for  force ;  and  yet  in  the  order  of  de- 
velopment, latest  and  highest  (for  the  latest  is  always  the  highest), 
is  the  power  of  sympathetic  love.  It  is  that  Avhich  has  been  devel- 
oped more  and  more  as  time  has  rolled  on.  We  have  come  to  that 
point  where,  it  seems  to  me,  we  may  Avell  dispense  Avith  many  phys- 
ical elements — many  curative  elements  which  are  wrapped  up  in 
fear.  Virtue  has  grown  strong  enough  in  this  world  to  introduce 
elements  that  are  higher  and  diviner. 

I  notice  particularly  fiicts  like  this :  that  we  think  of  New  Or- 
leans as  a  very  bad  city,  and  of  Boston  as  a  very  good  city.  But  I 
would  rather  undertake  to  cure  the  wickedness  that  exists  at  the 
bottom  of  society  in  New  Orleans  than  what  exists  at  the  bottom  of 
society  in  Boston.  The  wickedest  men  are  usually  found  at  the 
bottom  of  the  best  communities.  Why  is  this  ?  Because  good 
men,  growing  stronger,  and  sympathizing  with  each  other,  con- 
federate, and  form  a  crust  of  virtue  and  piety  and  intd^igcnce ;  and 
they  stand  absolutely  separated  from  those  who  are  below  them. 
There  is  a  great  space  between  the  top  and  bottom  of  society  under 
such  circumstances.  There  is  no  fellowship  between  them.  TJie 
consequence  is  that  the  bad  are  set  free  from  the  restraints  which 
sympatliy,  if  it  existed,  would  place  upon  them.  Therefore,  in 
cities  that  are  preeminently  good,  the  bad  are  worse  than  they  arp 
anywhere  else. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  there  is  not  so  much  classified  good- 


BEAMING  ONE  ANOTHER'S  BVBDEN8.  243 

ness,  where  the  good  do  not  separate  themselves  from  the  bad, 
where  there  is  more  fellowship  and  more  sympathy  between  the 
top  and  the  bottom  of  society,  the  bottom  is  more  accessible,  and 
not  so  much  neglected.  I  do  not  think  that  there  is  anything  in 
jails  that  can  cui'e  men.  I  do  not  think  that  men  can  be  cured  by 
stripes.  I  do  not  think  that  hanging  cures  men  of  anything;  or 
long  imprisonments;  or  scorn;  or  the  indignation  of  public  sen- 
timent. None  of  these  things  are  curative.  I  do  not  think  that 
anything  has  the  power  to  cure  except  a  loving  heart. 

When  the  child  was  dead,  and  the  Prophet  came  to  heal  it,  he 
stretc]:ed  himself  out  on  the  child,  and  put  his  lips  to  the  child's 
lips,  and  his  hand  on  the  child's  hand,  and  his  heart  to  the  child's 
heart.  Then  it  was  that  the  breath  came  back,  and  the  child,  sneez- 
ing, showed  that  life  was  returning  to  it.  And  I  do  not  believe 
that  there  is  anything  which  cures  hearts  in  this  world  ^  besides 
other  liearts  laid  upon  them,  brooding  them,  and  imparting  to  them 
something  of  their  own  sympathy  and  goodness.  If  a  heart  cannot 
be  cured  by  a  loving  heart,  it  is  incurable. 

I  hold  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  right  of  men  to  associate 
with  each  other  on  tlie  ground  of  elective  atBiiity;  but  care  should 
be  taken  in  determining  where  the  line  runs.  I  say  that  men  have 
no  right  to  stratify  society  so  that  there  shall  be  no  sympathy  be- 
tween the  different  classes.  It  is  not  right  that  there  should  be  no 
intercourse  between  the  top  and  the  bottom  of  society  except  that 
which  consists  in  sending  missionaries  by  the  former  to  the 
latter  to  tell  them  Avliat  to  do.  If  all  the  men  who  are  lifted  up 
by  virtue,  if  all  the  prosperous  men  who  are  kept  clear  of  vice,  if  all 
the  men  who  are  strong  in  various  excellences,  only  made  themselves 
brothers  to  those  who  are  less  fortunate  than'  they,  so  that  there 
was  no  doubt  of  their  sympathy  and  help,  do  you  not  think  there 
would  be  a  clasping  of  hands  between  the  top  and  the  bottom  ?  I 
do  not  say  how  it  can  be  done ;  I  do  not  think  the  way  is  found  out 
yet ;  but  I  say  that  so  long  as  goodness  makes  cream  of  one  side  of 
society  and  skim-milk  of  the  other,  we  shall  not  see  that  millennium 
of  which  we  are  dreaming,  and  for  which  we  are  hoping.  Your 
goodness  is  not  to  manifest  itself  in  rhetorical  display  or  in  the  im- 
.  pulse  to  preach  to  men.  Your  living  self  is  wanted.  Your  heart  is 
tlie  missionary.  Your  life  is  the  sermon.  Your  love,  your  confi- 
dence, your  trust,  your  helpfulness,  your  geniality,  your  sympathy 
in  every  form,  is  to  lift  up  l)at]  men,  to  encourage  tliem,  and  to  help 
them. 

Jlake  such  discriminations  and  exceptions  as  you  please;  but 
you  Avill  not  be  in  the  right  path  if  your  discriminations  and  excep- 


244  BEARING  ONE  ANOTHEWS  BUBDENS. 

tions  give  you  leave  to  do  nothing.  If  your  goodness  does  not 
rouse  up  goodness  in  some  one  else^  if  your  courage  is  not  a  help  to 
some  discouraged  man,  if  your  taste  does  not  refine  some  coarse 
nature,  if  your  life  is  not  a  blessing  to  those  who  are  less  favored 
than  you  are,  then  you  are  not  a  child  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

I  remark,  once  more,  that  this  central  idea  is  to  interpret  the 
character  of  God,  and  is  to  be  the  foundation  of  the  theology  of  the 
future.  We  have  had  a  theology  which  taught  us  of  a  God  that 
was  of  severer  and  sterner  stuff  than  to  allow  of  sin.  We  have  been 
trained  from  our  childhood  to  believe  that  God  hates  sin,  and  that 
the  prayers  of  the  wicked  are  an  abomination  to  him — misinterpret- 
ing the  whole  passage.  But  more  and  more  the  mediatorial  and 
medicinal  element  of  the  divine  character  has  come  out ;  and  at 
length  we  have  a  full  disclosure  of  it  written  in  that  life  which  is 
familiar  to  us  all.  We  are  no  longer  obliged  to  see  God'ri  character 
through  metaphysical  thoughts.  We  now  see  it  in  Christ.  And 
what  is  the  character  of  God  as  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ,  but 
this  :  the  character  of  One  who  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his 
Son  to  die  for  it,  not  wishing  that  any  should  perish,  but  wishing 
that  all  should  live  ?  Longing  for  it  with  all  the  power  of  his 
being,  he  laid  down  his  life  for  those  that  were  sinful  and  were  his 
enemies.  The  characteristic  feature  of  the  divine  character  is  a  love 
which  bears  the  sins  and  infirmities  of  the  universe  for  the  sake  of 
healing  them.  The  medicinal  and  mediatorial  character  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  representation  of  the  central  element  of  the  divine 
character ;  and  all  ideas  of  the  divine  character  must  be 
formed  after  the  pattern  of  that  character,  wherever  it  may 
carry  you.  I  do  not  say  where  logic  will  lead  you  (logic  is 
a  false  guide  nine  times  out  of  ten);  but  I  say  that  what  there 
is  of  goodness  on  the  earth  is  the  result  of  the  long-suffering 
patience  of  a  God  who  bears  with  the  sins  and  transgressions  of 
men ;  and  that  it  is  the  mercy,  and  the  love,  and  the  gentleness, 
and  the  pity,  and  the  saving  kindness  of  God  working  in  men, 
that  draws  them  up  toward  him. 

What  makes  things  grow  ?  The  peach-stone,  after  being 
planted,  has  first  to  be  dealt  with  by  the  frost,  so  that  the  meat 
shall  have  a  chance  to  sprout.  But  when  the  stone  is  cracked,  what 
makes  it  grow  ?  The  wind  from  the  north  does  not  help  it;  the 
freezing  does  not  coax  it:  the  burying  bank  of  snow  does  not  solicit 
it.  Not  until  sweet  and  pitying  rains  find  it;  not  until  it  is  whis- 
pered to  it  that  summer  is  coming ;  not  until  the  birds  begin  to 
sing  in  the  trees ;  not  until  the  sun,  returning  from  the  equator, 
sheds   blessing  over  it,  does  it  think  of  growing.     Then,  out  of 


BEARING  ONE  AN0TEEW8  BUBDEN8.  245 

sweetness  and  softness  it  plunges  its  roots  down,  and  lifts  its  stem 
up,  and  is  nourished  by  the  warmth  and  patience  of  the  summer, 
day  and  night.  All  terror,  and  all  thvinder,  and  all  severity,  pro- 
duce no  growth.  And  it  is  not  till  God  pities,  it  is  not  till  Jesus 
Christ  loves,  it  is  not  till  God's  whole  providence  showers  its  bounty 
on  those  who  are  heirs  of  salvation,  that  we  feel  that  inward  and 
upward  shooting  which  betokens  growth. 

We  are  children  of  God  in  proportion  as  we  are  in  sympathy 
with  those  who  are  around  about  us,  and  in  proportion  as  we  bear 
with  each  other.  How  sacred  is  man,  for  whom  Christ  died !  And 
how  ruthlessly  do  we  treat  him !  Oh,  my  brother,  oh,  my  sister, 
oh,  father  and  mother,  you  are  of  me,  and  I  am  of  yon  !  We  have 
•  the  same  temptations.  We  are  walking  to  the  same  sounds.  We 
are  upon  the  same  journey,  out  of  darkness  toward  light ;  out  of 
bondage  toward  liberty ;  out  of  sin  toward  holiness ;  out  of  earth 
toward  heaven  ;  out  of  self  toward  God.  Let  us  clasp  hands.  Let 
lis  cover  each  other's  faults.  Let  us  pray  more  and  criticise  less. 
Let  us  love  more  and  hate  less.  Let  us  bear  more  and  smite  less. 
And  by  and  by,  when  we  stand  in  the  unthralled  land,  in  pure 
light,  made  as  the  angels  of  God,  we  will  pity  ourselves  for  every 
stone  that  we  threw,  but  we  shall  not  be  sorry  for  any  tear  that  we 
shed,  or  any  hour  of  patient  endurance  that  Ave  experienced  for 
another.  Not  the  songs  that  you  sang,  not  the  verses  that  you 
wrote,  not  the  monuments  that  you  built,  not  the  money  that  you 
amassed,  but  what  you  did  for  one  of  Christ's  little  ones,  in  that 
hour  will  be  your  joy  and  your  glory  above  everything  else. 

Brethren,  this  is  a  sermon  that  ought  to  have  an  application 
to-day,  on  your  way  home,  in  your  houses,  and  in  your  business 
to-morrow.  From  this  time  forth,  see  that  you  are  better  men 
yourselves,  and  see  that  your  betterment  is  turned  to  the  account 
of  somebody  else.  And  consider  yourselves  as  growing  in  grace  in 
proportion  as  you  grow  in  patience  and  helpfulness.  Consider 
yourselves  as  growing  in  piety  and  as  growing  toward  God  in  pro- 
portion as  you  grow  in  sympathy  for  men. 


246  BEAliING  OlfE  ANOTHER'S  BURDENS, 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  rejoice,  oiir  Father,  that  our  wanes  never  cease.  "We  are  returning 
to  thee  every  day  and  every  hour,  drawn  by  our  necessities.  And  yet,  such 
are  thy  thoughts  of  mercy,  so  great  is  thy  bounty,  tbat  all  the  way  by  which 
we  go  is  a  way  strewn  with  blessings.  Thy  thoughts  of  relief  are  before  our 
thoughts  of  want.  Thou  art  standing  over  against  every  door  of  necessity. 
Thy  hands  art;  full.  Thy  heart  is  warm  with  desire  to  confer  blessing.  It  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.  This  we  have  learned.  It  is  more 
blessed  for  thee  to  give  than  to  receive.  Therefore,  thou  art  God  over  all, 
blessed  forever.  And  we  desire  to  cast  out  every  shadow  of  doubt,  every 
film  of  fear,  and  to  come  with  faith  and  hope,  and  make  known  all  our 
wants,  which  need  no  exposition  before  thine  eye  of  love,  and  to  ask  that  we 
may  receive  blessings  perfumed  in  the  asking,  and  made  sweet  in  the  recog- 
nition that  they  are  given  of  God.  ^ 

So,  may  we  be  tied  to  thee  by  our  necessities.  So,  may  our  life  seek 
thine.  May  our  joys  point  toward  thee.  May  we  seek  thee  not  only  in 
times  of  sorrow  and  burden  and  distress,  but  in  times  of  hope  and  cheer  and 
courage.  And  be  thou  ever  present  with  us,  that  our  lives  may  be  hid  in 
thine.  And  we  pray  that  there  may  be  such  inward  commuDication 
between  thee  and  us,  that  there  maybe  such  vibrations  of  thy  thought  in 
ours,  that  we  shall  think  as  thou  dost.  We  pray  that  our  hearts  may  be  so 
sensitive  to  the  tides  of  thy  feeling  that  all  emotions  shall  flow  in  concur- 
rence with  thine.  So  dwell  in  us.  so  abide  with  us,  and  so  may  we  be  one 
with  thee,  even  as  thou  art  one  with. the  Father. 

We  pray  that  thy  blessing  may  rest,  this  morning,  upon  all  that  are 
gathered  together  in  thy  presence,  as  they  severally  need.  We  need  not 
pbint  thee  to  them,  nor  open  to  thee  the  speciality  ol  their  necessity;  for 
thine  eye  beholds  all.  And  there  is  no  one  who  needs  to  cover  his  heart 
from  God  by  reason  of  his  guiltiness.  There  is  no  one  who  needs  to  hide  his 
heart  from  God  as  though  thou  di^dst  not  discern  all  the  secrets  and  intents 
thereof.  We  pray  that  every  one  of  us  may  come  boldly  to  the  throne  of 
grace  to  obtain  help  in  time  of  need. 

We  pray  for  all  those  who  ai'c  in  discouragement;  for  all  those  who  are 
heavy-laden;  for  all  those  who  are  in  the  dark,  or  whose  minds  are  filled 
with  doubt,  and  distress  and  vacillation. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  to  all  those  who  are  in  bereavements,  or 
who  stand  dreading  the  descent  of  thy  stroke,  the  consolation  of  thy  Spirit. 
Give  them  such  cheer  and  such  courage  that  they  shall  be  steadfast, 
unmovable.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that,  if  there  be  houses  of  dark- 
ness, that  if  there  be  hearts  burdened  by  reason  of  troubles,  there  may  be 
light  from  thee,  and  comfort  by  reason  of  thy  presence. 

We  pray  that  ttiose  who  are  standing  in  the  midst  of  life's  duties  may  be 
good  soldiers,  and  carry  forward  their  work  courageously  to  the  end.  Wilt 
thou  help  all  those  who  are  in  the  riaidst  of  the  battle  to  discern  evermore  the 
right  side;  and  may  they  carry  out  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Though  they  be  tossed  about  and  tried  and  tempted  in  the  battle  of  life,  may 
they  be  found  still  constant  to  the  right. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  those  in  our 
midst  who  give  their  time  and  strength  to  the  labor  of  instruction.  Bless 
our  Sabbath-schools,  and  the  dear  children  that  multiply  in  them.  Grant 
that  their  numbers  may  still  increase.  Gather  together,  out  from  every 
region  around  about,  the  poor,  the  dark,  the  benighted.  And  may  there 
still  be  raised  up  those  who  shall  be  pastors  to  lead  them  in  and  out  by  the 
Bide  of  still  waters  and  in  green  pastures. 


BEARING  ONE  AN OTUEB'S  BUBBEN8.  247 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  superintendents  and  oflflcersof  our 
schools.  May  they  ^e  men  of  God,  and  filled  with  the  very  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Bless  those  that  labor  in  every  field  from  out  of  our 
midst — those  who  seek  out  the  neglected;  those  who  visit  the  sick  in 
hospitals,  and  the  prisoners  in  jails.  And  we  pray  that  there  may  be  more 
and  more  benignly  spread  abroad  in  their  hearts  that  generous  sympathy 
for  those  who  are  in  trouble  which  shall,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  lead  them 
out  of  their  troubles  and  into  a  new  and  oetter  life. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessings  to  rest  upon  all  who  are 
to-day  preaching  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  May  they  themselves  have  a 
richer  experience  of  the  love  of  God  in  Christ.  May  they  see  more  and 
more  plainly  the  need  among  men  of  the  regenerating  power  of  God's  love. 
May  they  be  able  more  and  more  wisely  to  preach  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
both  as  it  is  presented  in  thy  Word  and  as  it  is  derived  from  thy  providence, 
that  men  shall  be  instructed  in  the  right  way.  We  pray  that  the  number 
of  those  who  seek  to  obey  thy  laws  may  be  muitiplied,  and  that  those  who 
disobey  thy  laws  may  be  instructed  in  a  better  way,  and  won  fi'om  a  life  of 
disobedience  to  a  life  of  holiness. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  spread  the  influence  of  the  truth  throughout 
this  whole  land.  Be  pleased  to  remember  all  those  who  are  in  authority. 
Bless  the  President  of  these  United  States,  and  those  who  are  joine  d  with 
him  in  the  administration  oi  the  laws  of  the  nation.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt 
grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the  Legislatures  and  upon  the  Governors 
of  all  the  States,  and  upon  the  judges  in  our  courts,  throughout  all  our 
land. 

We  pray  for  those  who  are  employed  in  the  offices  of  instruction  in 
universities,  and  colleges,  and  schools.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that 
tiiose,  everywhere,  who  occupy  places  of  trust  may  be  God-fearing  men. 
And  we  pray  that  this  whole  covmtry  may  be  prospered,  not  so  much 
by  avarice  and  greed  as  by  justice  and  truth.  And  may  the  example  of 
this  people  nourish  goodness  in  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  May  pride, 
and  violence,  and  superstition,  and  ignorance,  and  all  forms  of  corruption, 
cease.  We  pray  that  manhood  may  augment  everywhere,  and  that  the 
nations  of  the  earth  which  so  long  have  sat  in  darkness  may,  at  length  see 
that  light  which  shall  guide  them  to  the  bright  and  blessed  and  final  day  of 
prediction. 

Even  so.  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly,  for  the  earth  doth  wait  for  thee.  The 
sighing  of  the  prisoner,  and  the  crying  of  the  oppressed — have  they  not 
entered  into  tliiue  ears  ?  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth,  come  now  forth,  we  beseech 
of  thee;  and  by  the  power  of  thine  hand,  manifested  in  thy  providence,  by 
that  power  which  from  age  to  age  thou  art  revealing,  release  men  from 
their  thrall,  and  usher  iu  those  bright  and  glorious  days  when  the  earth 
shall  see  thy  salvation. 

And  to  the  f  dttier,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  everlasting. 
Amen. 


248  BEARING  ONE  ANOTHER'S  BURDENS. 

PEAYEE  AFTEE  THE  SEEMOK 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  admit  us  to  the  secret  of  thy  life. 
How  little  we  have  known  of  thee!  We  trace  thee  on  the  beams  of  the 
morning ;  but  how  little  have  we  known  of  thy  great  curative  heart  I  Thy 
thoughts  of  mercy,  thy  wonderful  pity,  thy  great  patieuce,— how  ignorant 
are  we  of  these!  Thou  that  mightest  have  swept  the  race  from  the  earth 
hast  been  a  Nurse,  and  hast  succored  men  in  their  weakness  and  in  their 
abasement.  Thou  hast  borne  us  upon  the  bosom  of  thy  love.  The  burden 
of  our  sin,  the  chastisement  of  our  peace,  has  been  upon  thee,  and  with  thy 
stripes  we  have  been  healed.  And  now  thou  art  suffering  for  us.  Thou 
art  waiting  pat.ontly  for  our  coming.  Thou  art  bringing  sons  and  daughters 
home  to  glory.  Thou  art  more  painstaldng  with  us  tban  any  earthly  parents 
are  with  their  children.  Glory  be  to  thy  name  for  what  thou  art !  Glory  be 
to  thy  name  that  thou  art  more  and  more  filling  the  earth  with  thy  Spirit ! 
Make  men  to  be  more  and  more  like  thee,  and  lead  them  to  treat  their 
fellow  men  as  they  themselves  are  treated  of  God.  Forgive  us  all  our  hard- 
heartednecs,  and  unmercifulness,  and  cruelty,  and  iujustice,  and  unsym- 
pathy  toward  one  anotlier.  May  we  be  more  patient,  more  forbearing. 
May  wc  be  brought  into  a  truer  manhood,  and  so  more  into  the  likeness  of 
Christ  until,  at  last,  we  shall  stand  redeemed  from  every  stain  of  sin,  and 
from  the  hatefulness  thereof,  in  thy  presence,  where  we  will  give  the  praise 
of  our  regeneration  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  forever  and 
ever.    Am>en. 


TIE  INDWELLING  OE  CHRIST. 


"To  whom  God  would  make  known  what  is  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  this 
mysteiy  among  the  Gentiles;  which  is  Christ  in  you,  the  hope  of  glory." — 
Col.  I,,  27. 


This  is  one  of  the  letters  of  the  Apostle  Paul  in  which  he  is 
kindled  to  a  very  lofty  inspiration  in  view  of  the  divinity  of  his 
Master,  Jesus  Christ.  In  the  preceding  verses  of  this  chapter, 
which  I  read  in  your  hearing  as  a  part  of  the  opening  services,  he 
looks  upon  him  in  his  exhortation  as  Creator  and  as  Chief  in  pre- 
eminent excellence  and  glory.  He  speaks  of  himself  as  having 
been  made  a  servant  of  this  Lord  and  Master  that  he  might  pro- 
claim the  knowledge  of  him  to  the  Gentiles.  That  is  to  say,  strip- 
ping off  the  covering  which  belongs  to  tliis,  as  a  part  of  the  Jewish 
history,  speaking  of  it  in  more  modern  phrase,  Paul  beheld  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  as  the  true  revelation  and  interf)retation  of  the 
Godhead.  He  perceived,  also,  that  this  God  was  God  over  all ;  not 
that  he  was  the  national  God  of  the  Jews,  but  that  he  belonged  to  the 
whole  human  family.  There  Avas  at  that  time  to  him  a  wonderful 
inspiration  in  the  liberty  and  universality  of  the  Gospel,  because  he 
had  been  brought  up  to  suppose  that  the  true  God  favored  chiefl.y 
the  Jews,  and  that  all  the  rest  of  the  human  race  were  only  as  their 
servants.  He  declares  the  riches  of  the  glory  of  the  Master  to  be 
the  truth  that  this  God  was  the  God  of  the  Gentiles.  And  then 
follows  the  language  of  our  text : 

"  Which  is  Christ  in  you  [or  Christ  as  revealed  in  you]  the  hope  of  glory." 

There  arc  a  great  many  ways  in  which  we  may  look  upon 
Christ.  We  may  look  upon  him — not  disdaining  outward  things — 
in  his  relations  to  the  inward,  invisible  experience  of  men,  and 
in  liis  relations  to  the  hidden  spiritual  Avorld,  beheld  in  the 
present  and  in  the  future.  It  is  this  last  revelation  which  seems  to 
have  kindled  the  apostle's  mind,  not  here  alone,  but  in  many  other 
instances.  It  was  the  thought  of  Christ's  iuAvard,  invisible,  personal 
relations  to  the  heart  of  man,  to  the  race,  a,nd  of  his  relations  to 

SrxDAY  MOBXiNG,  Jane  9,  1872.    Lesson  :  Col.  I.    Hymns  (Plymouth  Collectloa) 
Nos.  2(i0, 147, 163. 


252  THE  INDWELLING  OF  CHRIST. 

time  and  eternit}^,  that  kindled  in  the  Apostle  the  most  enthnsiastic 
utterances  of  his  life.  And  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  come  to 
a  knowledge  of  the  true  Christ  unless  we  employ  the  historical 
method,  and  become  familiar  with  the  portraiture  of  Christ  as  con- 
tained in  history.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  this  alone  will  not  save 
or  comfort.  It  is  true  that  it  will  not,  alone.  It  is  true  that  one 
may  study  the  Gospels  intellectually,  reproducing  from  them  imag- 
inatively in  himself  a  portraiture  of  Christ  that  will  be  transcend- 
ently  noble,  and  that  yet  it  shall  be  a  mere  imagination,  as  it  were, 
of  history,  not  vital,  not  powerfiiL  This  is  simply  an  abuse  of  a 
right  thing.  For,  if  we  be  uninstructed  in  regard  to  the  reality,  if 
we  cannot  go  back  to  tJie  data  which  history  furnishes,  how  can  we 
form  any  conception  of  Christ  that  shall  be  vital  ?  The  study  of 
the  work  and  of  the  character  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  anteced- 
ent and  auxiliary  to  a  true  experience  of  Christ. 

So,  too,  there  is  a  study  of  the  character  of  Christ  which  may 
be  called  the  theologic.  Carried  to  excess  it  often  is ;  it  is  much 
abused  ;  but  none  the  less  is  there  a  place  fcr  it,  and  a  reason  for 
it.  It  is  a  matter  of  transcendent  interest  to  know  whether  Christ 
himself  believed  that  he  was  divine  as  one  of  three,  cohering  in  an 
invisible  and  mysterious  unity  with  the  Father  and  with  the  Spirit. 
It  is  important  to  know  what  the  relations  of  the  revealed  God  in 
Christ  Jesus  were  to  law  and  moral  administration,  and  what  was 
the  nature  of  his  suffering,  and  what  was  the  relation  of  that  suf- 
fering to  the  great  matter  of  human  salvation — whether  it  was  an 
influence  reflexly  upon  the  mind  of  God,  whether  it  had  some 
influence  upon  the  mind  of  the  intelligent  universe,  or  whether  it 
had  some  direct  relation  to  a  kind  of  physical  structure  of  govern- 
ment. These  are  questions  not  without  interest.  Nay,  in  some 
sense  it  may  be  said  that  though  an  individual  or  a  series  of  indi- 
viduals may  live  and  thrive  in  a  true  piety  and  in  an  eminent 
Christian  experience,  outside  of  theology,  yet,  taking  men  collect- 
ively, the  theological  views  of  Christ  will  largely  determine  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  piety  of  the  church. 

Views  of  the  divinity  of  the  Saviour  which  run  !ow  will,  aver- 
aging them  through  the  ages,  be  productive  of  a  low  tone  of  spiritu- 
ality ;  and  t lie  theological  views  of  Christ  which  range  high,  and 
exalt  him,  will  tend,  through  the  ages,  to  produce  the  highest  types 
of  spirituality.  Nevertheless,  a  man  may  have  the  theology  of 
Christ  as  nearly  right  as  any  will  have  it  in  this  mortal  state,  and 
yet  not  be  possessed  of  Christ.  It  is  antecedent;  it  is  auxiliary; 
it  is  collateral.  Before  Christ  can  be  to  us  what  he  was  meant  to 
be,  there  must  be  something  other  than  either  the  historical  picture, 


TEE  INDWELLING  OF  CEEI8T.  253 

or  the  tlieologically  conceived  character  of  Christ.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  we  should  advance  beyond  the  historical  method,  or  the 
metaphysical  and  philosophical  method,  and  that  we  should  have 
what  may  be  called  a  romantic  Christ — a  Christ  of  the  imagina- 
tion. 

Men  may  advance  one  step  b  ^yond.  Taking  the  materials  which 
are  afforded  by  historical  invent  gation,  or  theological  research,  they 
may  construct  a  poetical  representation  of  Christ.  They  may  frame 
a  conception  of  a  being  that  rules,  and  may  add  every  element  to 
it  which  the  best  part  of  their  nature  can  contribute.  So,  in  the 
studio  •  of  their  own  mind,  they  may  be  forever  painting  the 
beauty  and  the  glory  which  inheres  in  the  character  of  such  a 
one  as  Jesus  Christ.  This  character  may  be  one  which  shall,  at 
times,  excite  poetic  prayer.  It  may  help  devotion.  It  may  have 
no  inconsiderable  influence  upon  the  life  of  men.  But  it  is  not  yet 
Christ  as  he  is  to  be  conceived  of  before  he  is  in  us  "  the  hope  of 
glory."  The  apostle  taught,  beyond  any  peradventure,  that  there 
is  something  more  than  this — namely,  that  there  is  a  living  Christ 
who  may  come  into  living  sympathy  with  us,  and  who  may  be  so 
received  as  to  be  a  part  of  our  own  lives,  and  a  part  of  our  inner- 
most experience. 

It  was  this  conception  of  Christ,  as  a  living  being,  exerting  a 
living  force  upon  living  men,  and,  as  it  were,  mixing  with  thought, 
and  feeling,  and  volition,  and  action,  and  disposition,  and  charac- 
ter, and  so  set  home  to  us  that  he  becomes  our  Christ — not 
the  Christ  of  Jerusalem,  not  the  Christ  of  the  heavenly  host,  not 
the  Christ  of  universal  theology,  but  a  Christ  formed  out  of  those 
materials  by  which  we  help  to  produce  in  ourselves  the  sentiment 
and  the  experience  of  Christ  in  us — it  was  this  conception  of  Christ 
that  it  was  meant  we  should  have.  It  was  Christ  "in  you." 
It  was  your  Christ,  and  mine.  It  was  each  man's  own  Christ.  It 
was  a  Christ  personal  to  each  one.  It  was  a  Christ,  the  thought  of 
whom,  being  framed,  built,  lived  with,  becomes  colored  with  our 
own  experience,  and  is  a  register  of  our  own  life,  we  writing  our- 
selves in  him  as  he  transforms  us  by  his  thought  and  indwelling 
influence. 

This  personal  Christ,  or  the  Christ  of  actual  personal  experi- 
ence, distinguished  from  the  Christ  of  history,  of  theology,  or  of 
romanticism,  is  that  of  which  I  shall  speak  to  you  this  morning. 

I.  In  order  that  he  may  be  my  Christ,  in  order  that  I  may  find  all 
my  wants  met  in  him,  he  must  be  One  in  whose  hands  is  the  whole 
sphere  in  which  1  live  and  act.  He  must  be  Lord  of  all  the  causes 
which  are  influencing  me ;  h  b  must  be  superemiu£nt  over  all  the 


254  .TEE  INBWELLTNG  OF  CEBIST. 

influences  which  surround  me ;  he  must  know  me,  and  control  me ; 
he  must  know  my  conditions, and  control  them ;  he  must  know  the 
great  sphere  in  which  I  am,  and  control  it,  or  else  he  is  not  the 
Christ  that  is  adequate  to  me.  It  is  not  needful,  perhaps,  in  the 
lower  planes  of  a  dull  or  semi-enlightened  experience,  that  we 
should  have  the  sense  of  a  supreme  deliverer;  hut  no  man  ever 
lifts  himself  up,  no  man  is  ever  inspired  in  the  higher  moods  of  his 
nature,  no  man  ever  feels  the  throbs  and  throes  of  a  coming 
deliverance,  no  man  ever  aspires  to  nobility,  or  contests  in 
himself,  and  strives  to  release  himself  from  that  which  is 
low  and  base,  and  reaches  toward  the  higher  and  the  nobler, 
if  he  does  not  feel  the  need  of  God.  When  we  are  look- 
ing down  we  are  our  own  gods,  and  we  feel  the  might  of  our 
own  nature,  the  potency  of  our  own  will ;  but  from  the  moment 
that  a  man  enlarges  immensely  the  conception  of  manhood,  and 
then  strives  for  it  in  earnest,  and  means  to  be  something  higher 
and  nobler — from  that  moment  dates  the  growth  of  the  necessity  of 
supernal  influences.  If  I  had  no  revelation  in  that  matter,  if  I  had 
no  concurrent  testimony  concerning  it,  my  OAvn  experience  would 
tell  me  that  my  nature  could  not  go  out  after  that  help  unless  there 
was  something  in  me  that  needed  it,  and  something  that  answered 
to  that  need.  As  when  I  hunger,  my  hunger  says  that  there  is 
food ;  as  when  my  eye  was  made,  that  eye  said  that  there  was  light 
to  match  it  and  to  meet  it ;  so  in  the  higher  realm  of  experience,  I 
do  know  that  certain  struggles  and  yearnings,  certain  mute  wants, 
certain  indefinite  and  indescribable  experiences,  all  point  to  some- 
thing higher  than  I  am. 

What  is  it  that  the  vine  seeks,  day  by  day,  struggling  through 
the  leaves,  and  twining  itself  upon  whatever  comes  in  its  way  ?  Is 
it  support  ?  It  would  be  just  as  well  supported  if  it  lay  on  the 
ground.  Why  does  the  vine  go  still  twining  up  ?  It  is  because  it 
is  in  love  with  the  light. 

Why  is  it  that  men's  souls  twine,  and  rise,  and  aspire  ?  Is  it 
instinct  ?  What  is  instinct,  but  this :  that  there  is  something  in 
the  nature  of  the  soul  which  reaches  out  after  a  stimulus  which  it 
feels,  as  the  plant  grows  toward  the  light  which  looks  upon  it  and 
stimulates  it  ?  As  everything  in  the  vegetable  kingdom  reaches 
toward  the  sun,  so  the  soul  reaches  toward  God.  He  3'earns  for  us, 
and  we  reach  out  toward  him. 

Now,  if  Christ  be  one  that  meets  my  wants  and  my  necessities  • 
if  he  be  the  Christ  of  history  which  declares  that  he  is  Bread,  that 
he  is  a  Staff,  that  he  is  a  Friend,  that  he  is  a  Deliverer,  that  he  is  a 
Saviour;  if  he  be  all  that  historically  he  is  declared  to  be,  he  must 


TEE  INDWELLING  OF  OHEIST..  255 

be  supreme  over  the  world,  and  supreme  over  its  conditious.  I  ac- 
cept, therefore,  the  rapturous  declaration  of  the  apostle  when  he 
says, 

"By  him  were  all  things  created,  that  are  in  heaven,  anl  that  are  in 
earth,  visible  and  invisible,  whether  they  be  thrones,  or  dominions,  or 
principalities,  or  powers :  all  things  were  created  by  him,  and  for  him :  and 
he  is  before  all  things,  and  by  him  all  things  consist." 

Take  the  divinity  of  Christ.  My  thought  of  Jesus  is,  that  he 
made  the  whole  earth  from  which  I  am  struggling  to  get  free.  And 
whatever  may  be  the  method  of  human  ascent  in  this  world,  it  is  a 
system  which  has  been  organized  and  instituted  and  conducted, 
thus  far,  by  Jesus — by  the  Saviour  of  the  world ;  and  all  the  laws 
that  relate  to  it,  all  the  laws  that  reflexly  have  to  do  with  it,  are  in 
his  hand.  He  has  the  control  of  them.  His  is  the  providence  which 
is  woven  in  them  and  through  them.  Christ  is  one  who  has  con- 
trol of  the  ages,  of  the  nations,  of  the  terraqueous  globe  on  which 
the  nations  tread,  of  all  physical  laws,  and  of  all  economic  laws; 
and  it  is  he  that  has  created  the  invisible  realm  which  wraps  this 
world  as  with  a  swaddling  band,  where  are  other  spirits,  thrones, 
powers  and  dominions.  In  the  hands  of  this  Saviour  are  both 
realms.  Therefore  when  I  crave  deliverance  it  is  not  such  a  craving 
as  I  feel  when  I  go  to  the  chemist  and  ask  what  is  the  analysis  of  my 
food,  and  what  are  the  best  things  for  me  to  eat.  It  is  not  such  a 
craving  of  deliverance  as  I  feel  when  I  go  to  the  optician  and  ask 
his  advice  in  regard  to  my  eye  which  is  in  trouble.  It  is  not  such  a 
craving  for  relief  as  I  feel  when  I  go  to  my  physician  and  get 
him  to  prescribe  for  my  bodily  aliments.  No  man  Avho  is  limited 
by  specialties  can  give  me  the  help  that  I  need.  Nothing  short  of 
one  who  is  Lord  over  all,  visible  and  iri>visible,  is  adequate  to  my 
want. 

My  conception  of  Christ  is,  that  he  is  mine :  not  mine  in  any 
sense  which  appropriates  him  to  me  alone ;  but  mine  as  really  and 
truly  as  though  I  were  the  only  human  being  in  the  universe.  My 
father  was  absolutely  mine,  although  my  next  younger  brother  could 
say  the  same  thing,  and  though  every  brother  and  sister  could  say 
the  same  thing.  I  had  the  whole  of  him,  and  each  of  my  brothers 
and  sisters  had  the  whole  of  him.  And  I  have  the  whole  of  my 
God.  The  God  of  all  the  heaven,  and  the  God  of  the  whole  earth, 
and  of  time,  and  of  physical  law,  and  its  sequence,  and  of  all  invisi- 
ble laws,  and  their  sequences — he  is  my  God. 
K,  II.  Next,  in  order  to  meet  the  exigency  of  my  nature  and  of  my  ex- 
perience, not  only  have  I  a  Christ  in  whose  hand  is  the  whole 
Bphere  of  earthly  administration,  but  one  who  loves  me.     I  cannot 


256  .  THE  INDWELLING  OF  CERIST. 

approach  any  other  God.  I  cannot  be  conditioned.  The  dull  and 
clumsy-minded  may  possibly  approach  with  conditions,  but  I  am 
neither  dull  nor  clumsy-minded.  My  ideal  goes  faster  than  any 
possible  realization.  Do  you  tell  me  that  God  will  accept  me  upon 
conditions  ?  Instantly  the  attempt  at  realization  comes  short. 
There  is  an  infinite  disparity  between  the  condition  and  my  po- 
tency. There  might  as  well  have  been  no  condition  at  all.  Do  you 
say  that  he  will  accept  me  when  I  am  good  ?  I  never  shall  be  good. 
Do  you  tell  me  that  he  will  accept  me  when  I  fulfill  his  law  ?  I 
never  shall  fulfill  his  law.  Do  you  say  that  he  will  accept  me  when 
I  disinterestedly  love  him  ?  I  never  shall.  The  more  I  look  into 
myself,  the  more  I  seem  to  be  a  mere  fragment  of  a  thing,  inchoate, 
rude,  unperfected,  unsymmetrical,  with  enough  spots  to  begin  at, 
but  few  accomplishments ;  with  rude  germs,  some  sown  in  good 
soil,  and  some  in  poor.  Here  I  am  full  of  aspiration,  and  yearning, 
and  all  manner  of  mingling  influences,  which  sometimes  whirl  as 
clouds,  and  at  other  times  lie  calm  and  serene  as  in  tranquil  sum- 
mer days.  There  is  a  consciousness  of  immense  potency  to 
come ;  but  there  is  no  sense  of  perfection,  or  attainment, 
or  symmetry,  or  loveableness.  When  I  look  in  at  myself, 
and  ask,  "  What  is  there  that  God  can  love  ?"  I  do  not 
know.  There  is  little  that  I  myself  can  love.  There  is 
very  little  in  me  that  I  could  love  if  I  saw  it  in  anybody 
else.  And  yet,  it  is  indispensable  to  me  that  somebody  should  love 
me.  I  cannot  live  without  love.  It  is  the  heat  of  the  universe. 
Philosophers  tell  us  that  without  heat  the  universe  would  die.  And 
love  in  the  moral  universe  is  what  heat  is  in  the  natural  world.  It 
is  the  great  germinating  power.  It  is  the  ripening  influence.  It  is 
the  power  by  which  all  things  are  brought  steadily  up  from  lower 
to  higher  forms.  And  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  believe  that  Jesus 
Christ  loves  me.  But  if  you  tell  me  that  he  loves  me  because  I  am 
so  good,  it  is  a  lie.  I  am  not  good.  Yet  he  loves  me.  If  you  tell 
me  it  is  because  I  am  going  to  be  so  good,  it  is  false.  That  cannot 
be  it.    Why  does  he  love  me  ? 

Oh,  tell  me,  if  you  can,  why  it  is  that  the  mother  loves  such  a 
little  thing  as  she  does  ?  Look  at  it.  It  does  not  know  how  to 
look  at  anything.  It  sprawls  its  little  mouth.  It  straggles  its  little 
hands  here  and  there.  It  is  a  hardly  shapen  little  piece  of  flesh. 
But  oh,  how  the  mother  loves  it !  It  is  covered  with  kisses,  that 
cannot  kiss  again.  It  is  pressed  to  her  bosom,  that  does  not  know 
even  how  to  touch  her  bosom  voluntarily.  It  is  the  mere  possibility 
of  something  in  the  future ;  but  at  present,  what  is  it  ?  It  is  ap- 
parently one  of  the  most  insignificant  of  creatures ;  and  yet  what  a 


TEE  m DWELLING  OF  CUBIST.  257 

tide  of  love  goes  out  toward  it !  Oh,  what  brightness  is  in  the 
mother's  eye !  Oh,  what  gentleness !  Is  there  anything  in  this 
world  that  brings  out  the  beauty  of  womanhood  so  much  as  the 
spectacle  of  a  great  heart  pouring  itself  out  on  that  little  something  ? 
It  is  the  richness  of  her  own  soul  that  is  loving  it.  It  is  her  nature. 
Love  is  there  by  constitution.  It  pours  itself  out  on  the  helpless 
child.  And  is  that  all  ?  Not  only  does  it  love,  but  it  teaches  the 
child  to  be  lovely.  The  child's  nursery  is  the  mother's  heart.  The 
cradle  in  which  every  virtue  and  grace  is  rocked  early  is  a  mother's 
love.  She  makes  the  child  lovely  by  loving,  by  waiting,  and  by 
training. 

I  am  as  a  lump  of  clay.  What  can  the  clay  do  of  itself?  Put 
it  upon  the  potters  wheel,  and  set  it  in  swift  revolution,  and  lay 
upon  it  a  skillful  hand,  and  see  how  the  rude  clay  begins  to  take  on 
form.  See  how  it  begins  to  show  the  most  exquisite  lines  of  the  old 
vases.  See  how,  by  the  touch  of  the  molding  hand,  it  is  brought 
to  something  that  it  is  not  of  itself. 

My  God  is  a  God  who  loves  out  of  his  own  nature,  and  not  on 
conditions.  It  is  not  needful  that  I  should  be  beautiful  in  order 
that  he  shall  love  me.  It  is  not  needful  that  I  should  be  patient  in 
order  that  he  shall  love  me.  Ho  loves  me  because  of  himself.  We 
are  saved  by  grace.  We  are  redeemed  by  goodness.  Our  salvation 
does  not  depend  upon  what  we  are,  but  upon  what  God  is.  He 
saves  us  by  the  long  sufiFering  patience  of  his  love.  And  it  is  this 
sense  of  the  God  regent  in  heaven,  who  rules  throughout  nature, 
who  takes  care  of  providence  itself,  who  is  providence,  and  who  has 
a  nature  so  royal  that  it  pours  love  abroad  incessantly,  as  the  sun 
does  light,  and  of  whom  it  is  said, 

"  He  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain 
on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust — " 

it  is  this  sense  of  One  who  is  a  God  of  universal  beneficence  on 
account  of  the  nature  which  he  has  in  himself,  and  the  nature  that 
draws  men  toward  him — this  it  is  that  I  need.  Give  me  this  con- 
ception of  God,  and  I  have  something  that  I  can  lean  on ;  some- 
thing that  I  covet;  something  that  is  worth  believing.  The  better 
you  make  him,  the  better  it  is  for  me.  Who  cares  how  large  the 
surplus  is,  when  dividends  are  going  to  be  declared?  If  you  are  one 
of  the- stockholders,  the  bigger  the  pile,  the  better  you  like  it.  Make 
God  as  good,  as  powerful,  as  glorious  as  you  please ;  lift  him  up  and 
up,  till  your  very  reason  faints  and  can  follow  no  longer;  for  he 
is  mine.  All  the  bounty  that  you  put  on  him,  all  the  crowns  that 
you  place  upon  his  head,  all  the  power  that  you  give  to  his  scepter, 
adds  to  the  worth  of  that  which  belongs  to  me.    Every  conception 


258  TEE  INDWELLING  OF  CEEIST. 

•which  magnifies  the  grandeur  and  dignity  of  God  augments  the 
glory  of  my  inheritance.  He  is  my  God ;  and  what  child  was  ever 
unwilling  that  his  father  should  be  honorable  or  powerful  or  rich  ? 

It  is  necessary,  further,  not  only  that  there  should  be  to  me  the 
thought  of  this  Christ  as  the  reigning  God  of  actual  affairs,  of 
providence,  and  so  of  history,  and  that  he  should  be  a  Being  whose 
nature  is  transcendent  in  love,  but  that  there  should  be  more  than 
that;  He  should  be  Christ  in  me.  He  should  be  a  Being  whose 
direct  and  personal  sympathy  I  recognize,  and  who  is  developing  in 
me  the  superior  qualities  of  spiritual  elements.  It  is  quite  in  vain 
for  the  apple  that  is  hanging  on  the  bough  to-day  to  rejoice  in  all 
the  glory  of  summer,  unless  the  summer  is  working  something  of 
itself  in  the  fruit.  It  is.  There  is  the  balm  of  the  summer  day , 
but  that  balm  is  not  alone  what  you  recognize.  It  comforts  a 
million  roots  in  the  lawn  before  your  house.  The  summer  is  not 
merely  the  warm  air  which  you  are  cognizant  of.  The  cricket 
knows  it.  The  grasshopper  knows  it.  The  moss  knows  it.  The 
very  stones,  that  grow  warm  and  stimulate  the  moss  which  covers 
them,  know  it.  Ten  thousand  little  delicate  insects  knov/  it.  All 
blossoms  know  it.  The  leaves  know  it.  The  fruits  know  it.  The 
summer  is  working  silently  but  universally.  It  is  in  everything. 
It  fills  everything  with  its  own  qualities.     It  develops  all  things. 

And  so,  not  only  must  my  God  be  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  the 
I*  Governor  of  the  earth,  but  his  personal  relations  to  me  must  be 
such  that  he  shall  be  in  me  all  the  time,  and  must  be  working 
specially  within  me. 

This  matter  is  likened,  in  the  Bible,  to  hospitality. 

"  I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock;  if  any  man  hear  my  voice,  and  open 
the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him,  and  will  sup  witti  him,  and  he  with  me." 

God  comes  to  men's  souls  ;   he  comes  to  the  soul-house  of  men; 

he  enters  there  ;•  lie  holds  communion  with  them.     It  is  as  if  a 

benefactor  entered  into  a  dwelling  to  bring  joy,  treasure,  relief — 

whatever    gift    he    might    please    to    bestow.      Christ   comes    to 

me,  transforming  all  that  is  visible  and  all  that  is  invisible  in  me. 

I  do  not  believe  that  God  is  a  person  who  sits  in  one  place  as  a 

man's  body  does.     I  stand  here  in  my  body ;   but  that  is  not  me. 

My  thoughts  are  running  quickly  to  and  fro.     They  stretch  from 

the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the  going  down  of  the  same.     I  am  where 

my  thoughts  are,  and  where  my  affections  are.    I  am   conscious 

that  my  inner  manhood  spreads  abroad,  and  is  already  superior  to 

time  and  space.    And  my  God  is  not  a  peraon  in  such  a  sense 

that  he  is  fixed.    Everywhere  the  affluent  mind  of  God  pervades 

the  universe.     He  enters  into  my  mind.     He  touches  the  springs 


THE  INDWELLING  OF  CHRIST.  259 

of  life  and  being  in  me.  And  it  is  the  quality  of  the  divine  in- 
dwellijig  to  develop  in  men  their  superior  nature — not  their  animal ; 
to  give  authority  and  power  to  their  faculties — love,  and  hope,  and 
faith,  and  conscience,  and  the  moral  sense ;  to  set  them  free  from 
the  dominion  of  the  appetites  and  passions.  I  believe  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  an  indwelling  God.  In  other  words,  I  believe 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  direct  sympathetic  action  of  the  divine 
mind  on  certain  parts  of  our  mind. 

Let  a  little  child  be  in  the  room  with  its  slate,  making  figures, 
and  let  that  child,  if  it  be  musically  inclined,  hear  the  mother  sing 
in  a  lo'w  tone,  and  its  thoughts  begin  to  sing  the  tune  that  the 
mother  is  singing, — involuntarily.  Let  the  child  sit  musing, 
and  let  the  mother  begin  to  tell  some  interesting  story,  and  she 
does  not  need  to  say  to  the  child,  '"'Now,  listen!''  It  will  listen  in 
spite  of  itself.  If  you  sigh  in  the  presence  of  another  man,  he  will 
be  likely  to  sigh  too.  If  you  sing,  he  will  feel  sing.  If  you  reason, 
he  will  think  reason.  If  you  laugh,  he  will  smile.  If  you  cry,  the 
shadow  falls  on  him.  You  reflect  yonr  mood  on  those  who  are 
around  about  you.  And  God's  mind  has  power  upon  the  minds  of 
those  who  are  in  communion  with  him.  If  the  heart  be  open,  and 
the  moral  nature  be  sensitive,  God  acts  upon  the  thought  and 
feeling,  so  that  you  are  guided  by  him.  And  I  fain  would  believe 
that  there  is  a  loving  Christ  who  dwells  in  me,  and  takes  care  of  all 
the  conditions  that  afiect  me,  and  fills  me  Avith  a  divine  stimulus 
and  influence. 

It  is  not  the  irresistible  grace  of  God,  it  is  the  nursing  care,  it  is 
the  steady,  constant  influence  of  the  divine  mind,  borne  in  on  my 
mind,  that  fills  up  somewhat  the  measure  of  the  apostolic  thought, 
and  the  conception  of  Christ  in  you.  This  indwelling  of  Christ, 
this  spiritual  contact  of  his  nature  with  the  super-sensuous  nature 
of  man — this  it  is  that  transforms  the  visible  sphere.  It  gives  life 
a  perspective,  it  adds  to  the  sense  of  being,  to  have  a  vision  of 
coming  immortality — to  have  a  consciousness  of  "  Christ  in  you  the 
hope  of  glory."  That  which  every  man  needs  more  than  anything 
else  is  to  see  that  the  experiences  which  are  going  on  in  the  world 
around  him,  and  which  are  reflected  in  him,  are  a  part  of  that  great 
life  which,  beginning  here,  runs  on  and  completes  itself  only  in  the 
life  that  is  to  come.  If  in  this  life  only  we  had  hope,  we  should  be 
of  all  men  most  miserable. 

I  know  it  has  been  said  that  morality  has  such  fruit  that  it  would  V^ 
be  worth   while  to  be  moral  if  we   lived  but  a  hundred  or  fifty 
years;  and  that  is  true  in  some  sense.     But,  considering  all  the  con- 
ditions of  strife,  all  the  exigencies  of  conflict,  all  the  rivalries  of  men 


260  THE  INDWELLING  OF  CHRIST. 

in  the  imiYersal  mixture  of  human  affairs,  no  man  can  well  bring 
to  bear  such  things  as  a  potential  niotiye,  and  say  that  they  are  suf- 
ficient. If",  howeycr,  a  man  feels  that  though  his  life  begins  here, 
it  runs  beyond  the  present ;  if  he  feels  that  there  is  an  unharnessed, 
emancipated  life  in  the  future ;  if  he  trains  himself  to  feel  that  his 
experience  is  to  be  measured,  not  by  its  relations  to  this  hour,  and 
this  day,  and  this  year,  but  by  its  relations  to  his  whole  sphere  of 
existence,  it  will  make  all  the  difference  in  the  world. 

If  I  were  to  find  a  man  fastening  up  the  windows  of  my  house, 
where  I  am  to  live  year  after  year,  so  that  I  could  get  neither  air 
nor  liofht,  it  Would  be  an  inconvenience  to  me;  but  if  I  were  not 
expecting  to  stay  there,  I  should  not  care  so  very  much. 

When  I  was  on  my  way  from  Liverpool  to  Halifax,  and  ihe 
steward  came  and  said  that  he  must  fasten  up  the  bull's-light  to  koep 
the  water  out,  and  screwed  up  the  window  so  that  where  there  was  no 
air  before,  there  was  still  less  afterward,  I  did  not  care.  I  was  like 
a  water-logged  stick  in  my  berth,  anyhow ;  and  I  looked  up,  and 
said,  "  Well,  it  will  make  no  difference.  Ten  days  of  annihila- 
tion. On  shore  pretty  soon.  Don't  care  what  air  I  have,  or  what 
anything  else." 

If  my  present  life  is  all  that  I  have ;  if  the  horizon  is  to  me  the 
utmost  lin6  of  travel;  if  the  days  that  I  am  wearing  out  now 
are  all  the  days  that  are  to  be  mine,  it  makes  a  great  deal  of  differ- 
ence what  my  conditions  are.  I  insist  on  good  things  here,  if  there 
is  nothing  but  this  world.  If  there  is  no  existence  beyond  the  pres- 
ent life,  I  will  seek  the  utmost  enjoyment  here.  If  I  am  to  die  when 
I  am  through  with  the  material  globe,  I  will  exert  all  my  strength 
to  secure  the  best  fruits  which  physical  life  affords.  If  I  am  to  cease 
to  exist  with  the  going  down  of  my  mortal  sun,  then  this  world  must 
yield  something  or  other  to  me,  and  something  or  other  I  will  have 
out  of  it.  And  if  a  stronger  man  than  I  am  throws  me  down,  it  is 
a  woe.  If  other  men  know  how  to  suck  out  joy  and  I  do  not,  or  if 
when  I  go  to  the  flowers  the  honey  is  gone,  that  is  a  misery  and  a  mis- 
chief. 

But  oh  !  tell  me  that  I  am  beloved ;  that  on  the  bosom  of 
love  I  shall  dwell  above  the  reach  of  time  and  chance;  that  I  am  to 
live  as  long  as  God  lives ;  that,  dropping  these  conditions,  I  am  to 
rise  to  a  higher  spiritual  form ;  that  I  am  to  have  better  companion- 
ship ;  that  I  am  to  have  a  clearer  knowledge  of  my  God  ;  that  I  am 
to  be  among  the  first-born  of  the  saints  in  heaven — tell  me  these 
things,  and  every  part  of  my  life  is  transformed.  Now,  what  if  I 
am  poor  ?  I  can  afford  to  be  poor.  What  if  I  am  sick  ?  I  can 
afford  to  be  sick,  and  wait  for  my  eternal  health.     What  if  I  am  uu- 


THE  INDWELLING  OF  CHRIST.  261 

known  here  ?  My  name  is  written  in  the  Book  of  Life.  What  if  I 
am  disconsolate  ?  There  is  music  sounding  in  which  I  shall  take 
part.  What  if  I  am  obscured,  persecuted,  cast  out,  hated  here  ? 
Sovereign  is  the  eternal  God,  and  he  shall  lift  up  the  humble,  and 
exalt  them  by  his  right  hand  of  power.  And  I  turn  to  death  itself 
and  say,  "  Where  is  thy  sting  ?"  What  if  death  takes  away  our 
loved  ones  ?  They  are  to  live  again  out  of  the  turmoil  and  trouble 
of  this  life,  in  a  sphere  where  neither  darkness,  nor  sickness,  nor 
poverty  can  come,  but  where  there  shall  be  riches,  and  health,  and 
light  forever  more. 

"I  know,"  said  the  apostle,  "how  to  abound  and  how  to 
suffer  lack ;"  and  so  it  is  with  every  man  who  has  a  real  vivid  belief 
in  God,  and  whose  Christ  is  in  him  day  by  day,  interpreting  to  him 
the  eternal  glory.  Christ  hi  you  the  hope  of  glory — that  is  the 
Christ  which  you  want.  That  is  the  Christ  which  every  struggling 
soul  needs.     That  is  the  Christ  that  I  preach  to  you. 

Men  and  brethren,  I  am  not  indifferent  to  your  views  in  respect 
to  technical  theology.  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  that  your  religious 
opinions  have  no  validity.  I  do  not  say  that  all  knowledge  of  Christ 
must  consist  in  this  personal  experience.  But  I  do  say  that  if  you 
are  without  this  experience  you  discrown  yourself,  and  disinherit 
yourself  of  those  blessings  by  which  you  were  to  have  been  made 
rich  kings  and  priests  unto  God. 

You  have  your  own  sorrows ;  but  Christ  has  been  for  you  "  a 
man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief."  You  have  your  own 
conflict  with  pride ;  but  you  are  led  by  One  who  has  been  tempted 
in  all  points  as  you  arc,  yet  without  sin.  You  have  your  own  mor- 
tifications and  limitations  and  hindrances.  You  are  brave  and 
proud ;  courage  and  pride  lift  themselves  up  in  you  in  vain ;  they 
are  chained  down ;  nevertheless  you  have  One  who  has  come  to  open 
the  prison  door,  and  to  break  the  chain,  and  to  give  life  and  liberty 
to  the  imprisoned  spirit.  You  have  in  Jesus  Christ  that  patience 
without  which  no  one  could  get  along  with  you.  He  has  patience 
with  you,  if  no  one  else  has.  He  has  forgiving  love.  He  has  cleans- 
ing power.  His  life,  his  nature,  his  influence,  touch  humanity  in 
every  part.  He  comforts  those  who  would  despair  without  divine 
comfort.     He  enlightens  those  who  sit  in  darkness. 

I  preach  that  Christ  to  you  who  is  the  very  God  that  rules  the 
heaven  and  the  earth;  who  loves  you,  and  loves  you  for  your  good, 
and  not  because  you  are  so  good ;  who  nourishes  you ;  who  would 
fain  lift  you  in  his  arms  above  the  trouble  of  life ;  who  would  shape 
you  by  Avhat  you  enjoy  and  suffer,  so  that  one  day  you  shall  walk  m 
his  presence,  with  all  the  port  and  dignity  of  the  sous  of  God.    I 


262  TEE  INDWELLING  OF  CHRIST. 

preach  to  yon  immortality.  I  preach  to  yoii  a  renewed  and  enno- 
bled manhood.  I  preach  to  you  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  as 
the  all-fashioning  influence  by  which  you  are  to  be  brought  to  that 
manhood  and  that  immortality. 

Do  riches  suffice  ?  Is  pleasure  enough  ?  Does  your  cup  run 
over  ?  Can  you  look  around  and  say,  "  I  have  no  need  of  God :  I 
am  strong  enough  in  virtue  and  in  good ;  I  have  more  than  heart 
could  wish  "  ?  Have  you  love  enough  ?  Are  you  not  met  day  by  day 
with  care  and  with  sorrows  ?  Day  by  day  does  your  soul  not  feel  the 
guilt  of  sin  ?  Do  j'ou  feel  no  burden  of  evil  ?  Do  you  long  to  be 
better,  and  never  strive  with  bitter  disappointment  ?  Is  there  that 
in  you  Avhich  claims  and  hungers  for  immortality  ?  Do  you  long 
to  be  stronger  and  nobler  in  all  that  is  transcendent  ?  For  you 
there  is  a  Saviour — Jesus  Christ.  He  is  for  all,  without  exception. 
It  needs  only  that  you  should  take  him. 

If  for  every  man  in  Brooklyn  there  was  sent  to  the  Post  Office 
here  a  veritable  document  announcing  that  there  had  been  left  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  for  him,  every  one  of  you  would  receive 
that  hundred  thousand  dollars  who  should  go  and  draw  the  docu- 
ment and  use  it.  But  though  there  were  a  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars waiting  for  each  one  of  you,  not  one  of  you  would  have  it  if 
you  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  go  and  get  it  and  appropriate  it. 

Now,  there  is  stored  up  in  the  universe,  in  nature  and  in  the 
heart  of  God,  infinite  help,  infinite  bounty;  and  all  that  is  asked  is 
that  you  shall  take  it,  accept  it,  realize  it,  bring  it  home,  and  let  it 
comfort  you,  and  inspire  you,  and  cleanse  you,  and  lift  you  up.  If 
you  do  not  accept  it,  if  you  have  not  fiiith  to  believe  that  it  exists 
for  you,  it  profits  you  nothing.  It  is  there  ;  it  waits ;  it  longs  to  be 
gracious  to  you;  but  it  requires  that  you  should  accept  it,  that  you 
should  take  the  comfort  of  it,  that  you  should  have  a  realization  of  it, 
that  it  should  be  to  you  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  that 
it  should  be  in  y.ou  Christ  "  the  hope  of  glory." 

May  God  bring  you  to  the  preciousness  of  this  hope  on  earth — 
to  the  love  of  this  Jesus ;  may  your  faith  in  him  be  strengthened 
day  by  day;  and  may  he  bring  you,  at  last,  to  that  land  of  glorj, 
•where  you  shall  have  no  need  of  sign  or  of  teaching — where  you 
shall  behold  him  as  he  is,  and  abide  with  him  forever. 


TEE  INDWELLING  OF  GEBI8T.  263 


PKAYEK  BEFOEE  THE  SEEMON. 

Thou  beholdest,  our  Father,  the  way  in  which  we  are  walliing.  Our 
path  is  known  to  thee,  and  our  experience  therein.  Before  thee  are  the 
children  of  joy,  and  the  children  of  sorrow;  the  burdened,  and  those  that 
are  light  ol  foot;  those  that  are  rich  inwardly,  and  those  that  are  poor; 
the  struggling,  and  those  that  are  at  rest;  those  that  are  comforted  and 
satisfied  with  love,  and  those  who  hunger  and  thirst  after  it,  and  are  not 
satisfied.  Thou  dost  behold  all  the  inward  struggles,  and  all  the  outward 
embarrassments  of  this  mortallife;  and  not  one  is  pressing  through  calm 
or  through  storm,  through  brightness  or  through  darkness,  unheeded  and 
unguided.  And  though  to  us,  by  reason  of  our  weakness  and  our  littleness, 
life  seems  a  whirl  in  which  things  dash  upon  each  other  wildly,  and  without 
guide,  and  where  chance  is  but  little  overborue  by  human  intelligence;  yet, 
to  thine  eye,  all  things  are  under  law,  and  all  things  are  bidden,  and  thy 
counsels  are  supreme,  and  thy  sovereign  will  everywhere  still  holds  every- 
thing in  subordination ;  and  in  the  end  we  shall  behold  it.  We,  who  are  now 
pilgrims,  shall  yet  one  day  be  content  in  our  Father's  realm.  We,  who  are 
dark-minded,  shall  yet  one  day  see  as  we  are  seen,  and  know  as  we  are 
known.  Out  of  our  experience  we  look  away  by  faith  to  thee.  We  desire 
to  live,  not  by  sight,  but  by  faith.  What  time  we  look  upon  things  as  they 
are,  our  hearts  grow  heavy  and  our  eyes  grow  dark.  Only  when  we  can 
lift  ourselves  up  above  things  that  we  behold  into  the  eternal  realm  of 
truths  which  thou  hast  made  known,  and  which  thou  art  making  known 
through  us,  can  we  find  a  settled  peace.  There  is  a  realm  in  our  thought 
where  no  wants  do  follow.  There  are  experiences  which  are  full  of  blessed- 
ness witliout  change.  And  although  we  do  not  rise  easily,  sometimes  we 
rise  to  the  plentitude  of  trust,  and  then  get  strength  enough  to  last  us 
through  the  dreary  days  that  follow.  Not  often  dost  thou  take  thy  disciples 
to  the  mountain-top  to  be  transfigured  before  them;  yet  sometimes  thou 
'  dost ;  and  afterward,  when  weary  months  have  rolled  away,  still  thou  dost 
stand  before  them  brighter  than  the  sun  lifted  above  the  earth,  hoveriug 
with  its  power  bright  in  the  air,  more  blessed  than  in  any  earthly  contact. 
And  we  rejoice  that  thou  dost  manifest  thyself  to  thy  people.  We  do  not 
hear  thee  speaking  as  we  hear  one  another  speak,  though  we  long  for  it 
ever  so  much.  We  do  not  feel  our  hand  touched  by  thine,  though  we  desire 
to  clasp  thy  hand  in  inseparable  friendship  and  guidance.  We  do  not  live 
with  thee  as  we  live  one  with  another;  for  thou  art  a  Spirit,  and  we  are 
mortal  bodies,  and  are  living  in  a  different  sphere  from  thine.  We  cannot 
know  these  higher  things  as  we  know  the  lower.  If  we  know  them  at 
all,  we  know  them  by  the  way  and  by  reason  of  the  highest  things ;  and  yet 
we  do  know  them.  Thou  dost  interpret  thyself  to  our  love,  to  our 
faith,  to  our  hope,  to  our  sense  of  that  which  is  right  and  beautiful. 
Thou  art  not  far  from  us.  Even  when  wo  seem  furthest  from  thee,  thou 
art  nearest  to  us.  The  Fun  hath  not  gone  because  the  room  is  dars.  It 
shineth  still  all  around  about,  though  it  may  be  shut  out.  And  thou  art  not 
far  from  us  because  we  shut  thee  out.  We  rejoice  that  there  is  a  hfe  hiddeo 
in  thine.  We  rejoice  to  believe  that  thy  life  abides  in  ours.  Thou  dost 
come  to  thy  people.  Thou  dost  dwell  with  them.  Thou  do.-t,  in  the 
sweetest  familiarity,  dwell  with  them,  sup  with  them,  converse  with  I  hem, 
sympathize  with  them,  joy  and  rejoice  with  them,  lift  them  up  when  they 
fall  down,  pity  them  when  they  are  in  troul)le,  forgive  them  when  they 
trespass,  and  inspire  them  when  they  are  by  despondency  rendered  dull. 
Thou  art  all  in  all:  not  in  those  alone  who  are  high— the  children  of  genius. 


264  THE  12^ DWELLING  OF  CEBIST. 

Thou  art  all  in  the  poor,  and  in  the  needy;  in  cbildren,  and  in  men  grctwn. 
Thou  art  all  in  aU.  Thou  completest  the  circle  of  being  in  thyself.  And  we 
rejoice  in  this  fullness  and  blessedness  of  thy  being,  in  all  our  relations  to 
thee,  and  in  all  thy  sympathetic  relations  to  us;  and  we  desire  more  and 
more  to  learn,  in  a  practical  life,  in  a  daily  experience,  to  live  by  trust,  by 
hope,  by  communion,  by  joy  In  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Grant  to  all  those  who  desire  this  life  the  quickening  and  the  love  of  thy 
Spirit.  We  are  weak.  It  is  not  by  the  ordinary  exertion  of  our  own  will,  it 
it  not  by  our  own  skill  nor  our  own  ledrning,  that  we  reach  unto  these 
things.  Thou  must  take  us  up  still.  Who  of  us  can  make  the  day  fair? 
Who  of  us  can  bid  the  morning  shine  and  drive  away  the  storms?  These 
come  from  out  of  the  heaveus.  And  thou  from  out  of  the  higher  heaven 
must  let  down  for  us  those  blessed  visions,  and  that  strength,  and  that  com- 
fort, and  all  that  food  of  the  soul  which  we  need. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  we  may  have,  to-dgy,  the  consciousness  that 
we  are  beloved  of  thee.  May  we  put  far  from  U5  those  evil  thoughts  which 
spring  from  human  experiences.  Thou  art  a  Father,  but  how  infinitely, 
and  in  a  sense  how  much  fuller  than  any  earthly  parent !  How  minute, 
how  watchful,  bow  tender,  bow  patient,  how  long-suffering  is  thy  care  of 
us  !  Thy  thoughts  have  to  do  with  everything  that  belongs  to  us.  Thou  art 
moving  around  about  us  with  more  influence  than  the  light  is  around  about 
everything  on  which  it  shines.  May  we  lift  ourselves  into  a  comprehension 
of  this.  May  we  trust  in  thy  love.  Though  we  understand  thee  not ;  though 
thy  ways  are  strange  to  us;  though  thy  dealings  seem  adverse;  though  thou 
hidest  thyself,  and  dost  seem  to  frown  upon  us  through  darkness,  and 
chastise  us  with  many  stripes  and  strokes — though  thou  slay  us,  we  will 
trust  thee.  There  is  supreme  goodness  over  all  evil.  There  is  absolute 
wisdom  over  all  the  folly  which  mixes  in  human  life.  There  is  glory  over 
all  human  failure  and  disgrace.  There  is  a  rest  which  remaineth  for  the 
people  of  God,  And  thrcugh  storms,  through  troubles,  through  temptations, 
through  darkness,  through  doul)ts,  through  all  evil  suggestiois,  we  lift  our- 
selves up  to  thee,  the  obscured  and  the  necessary  God.  Thou  art  needful  to 
our  life.  Thou  art,  because  we  need  thee.  And  we  believe  that  all  those 
aspirations  and  yearnings  which  we  have  toward  thee,  spring  not  from  the 
ground.  What  clod  hath  taught  us  to  desire  God?  Prom  what  side  of 
human  life  have  we  learned  the  glory  of  the  disinterested  love  which  is  super- 
eminent  in  thee?  It  is  fhy  drawing  that  halh  taught  us  these  better  things. 
And  we  cling  to  the  inspiration  and  the- aspiration,  md  desire  to  be  lifted 
upward  and  onward  to  the  end,  that  we  may  inherit  the  promises,  and  at 
last  behold  thee  as  thou  art.  No  more  dreams ;  no  more  thoughts  of  dismay 
and  despair;  no  more  images  nor  analogies;  no  more  wild  reasonings :  we 
shall  behold  thee  as  thovi  arr,  in  thy  gloiy,  in  thy  symmetry,  in  thine  ineffa- 
ble beauty,  in  thine  all-powerlul  drawings  of  love, — as  t)t,yiiart,  never  to 
doubt  again,  nor  to  wander;  not  to  drop  a  tear,  but  to  be  forever  with  the 
Lord. 

Grant,  out  of  the  great  abundance  of  the  counsels  of  these  truths,  that 
those  may  be  comforted  to-day  who  need  thy  special  presence, — all  that  are 
bereaved;  all  that  have  walked  the  ways  of  sadness  and  sorrow  under  the 
chastisements  of  thy  gracious  hand;  all  that  are  under  bitter  disappoint- 
ments; all  that  find  themselves  cast  down  by  any  refisou.  Give  strength  to 
the  weak.  Give  comfort  to  the  afflicted.  Give  hope  to  the  doubting  and 
discouraged.  Give  thine  own  presence  to  those  who  are  in  darkness.  May 
every  one  of  us  feel,  to-day,  that  we  have  fed  upon  the  Lord.  May  we  feel 
that  he  has  been  to  us  the  bread  of  life.  May  thy  communion  be  as  the 
water  of  life  to  every  thirsty  soul. 

We  pray  for  those,  to-day,  who  shall  be  gathered   together  in  our 


THE  INDWELLING  OF  CHBIST.  265 

churches.  May  they  meet  their  Lord.  And  may  thy  dear  servants  that 
shall  attempt  to  expound  the  truth  to  them  be  able  to  do  it  by  the  help  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  sent  down  from  on  high.  We  pray  that  they  may  spread 
the  Gospo),  and  make  its  work  more  perfect  in  our  land.  May  its  tidings  be 
carried  to  every  laud,  aud  may  the  earth  speedily  see  thy  salvation. 

We  ask  these  things  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,    Amen. 


PEAYEK  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Grant,  our  Father,  thy  blessing  to  rest  abundantly  in  the  word  spoken — 
especially  in  the  preciousness  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus  Christ.  Grant 
that  every  one  of  us  may  lay  claim  to  that  which  is  ours.  Not  only  may  we 
all  be  able  to  say,  Our  Father,  but  may  each  of  us  be  able  to  say  My  Father. 
With  him  of  old,  may  we  say,  My  Lord  and  my  God.  God  help  us  to  appro- 
priate that  which  belongs  to  us  and  waits  for  our  taking.  Grant,  we 
beseech  of  thee,  that  the  goodness  of  God  may  lead  us  to  repentance,  and 
that  the  mercy,  and  gentleness,  and  sweetness  of  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus  may  stir  up  in  us  all  that  is  good,  all  that  aspires,  and  that  we  may  by 
this  divine  food  in  the  soul  grow  to  a  fuller  manhood,  to  a  nobler  concep- 
tion, to  a  better  and  purer  life,  and  finally  to  immortality.  We  ask  it  fc* 
Christ's  sake.    Amen, 


XV. 

Thoughts  of  Death. 


THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH. 


"  I  must  work  the  works  of  him  that  sent  me  while  it  is  day ;  the  night 
eometh,  when  no  man  can  work."— John  IX.,  4. 


The  particular  connection  of  these  words  of  our  Saviour  with 

the  history  in  which  they  stand,  gives  rise  to  some  difficulty ;  but 

there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  their  intrinsic  meaning.     It 

is  only  the  reason  why  he  should  have  uttered  such  words  on  this 

occasion  that  it  is  difficult  to  understand. 

"  As  Jesus  passed  by,  he  saw  a  man  which  was  blind  from  his  birth.  And 
his  disciples  asked  him,  saying.  Master,  who  did  sin,  this  man,  or  his  parents, 
that  he  was  bom  blind?  Jesus  answered,  Neither  hath  this  man  sinned,  nor 
his  parents :  but  that  the  works  of  God  should  be  made  manifest  in  him.  I 
must  work  the  works  of  him  that  sent  me,  while  it  is  day ;  the  night  eometh, 
when  no  man  can  work." 

It  is  difficult  to  perceive  how  the  presentation  of  the  case  on 
which  lie  was  to  exercise  his  mercy  should  have  excited  the  train 
of  thought  which  is  contained  in  this  passage  ;  and  I  do  not  doubt 
that  there  was  an  intermediate  scene.  We  know,  in  regard  to  the 
narratives  of  the  gospel,  by  comparing  them  together,  that  many 
of  the  utterances  of  Christ,  as  they  stand  in  particular  gospels,  had 
between  one  and  another  lengthened  utterances,  conversations, 
questions  and  answers ;  and  the  results  are  often  taken  by  the  dif- 
ferent evangelists  and  put  close  together,  while  those  conversations 
which  led  to  such  utterances  are  left  out.  Sometimes  they  are  left 
out  by  one  evangelist  and  put  in  by  another,  showing  us  the 
method  which  was  pursued.  So  that  what  is  recorded  in  Mark, 
for  example,  as  isolated  events,  we  shall  find  in  Luke  to  have 
been  connected  by  an  important  passage  of  history.  Therefore, 
not  only  are  Ave  at  liberty,  but  we  are  often  compelled  to  under- 
stand that  the  connection  between  one  scene  and  another,  or 
between  one  utterance  and  another,  may  have  been  left  out. 

Why  the  siglit  of  a  man  who  was  blind,  and  upon  whom  the 
Saviour  Avas  about  to  perform  a  miracle,  should  have   excited  a 

Sunday  Evening,  June  16,  1872.  Lesson  :  psalm  XCI.  Hymns  (Plymouth  Collection), 
Nob.  1321,  U21,  U57. 


270  THO  UGHTS  OF  DEA  TH. 

thought  of  death  in  him,  we  do  not  at  present  see.     Something  un- 
doubtedly occurred  wliich  gave  that  inflection  to  his  thoughts. 

"  I  must  work  the  works  of  him  that  sent  me,  while  it  is  day  [that  is  to 
say,  while  I  am  in  life,  and  in  the  full  possession  of  power];  the  night 
Cometh  [that  is,  death],  when  no  man  can  work." 

It  is  from  tliis  passage  that  I  wish,  this  evening,  with  suitable 
brevity,  to  discourse  to  you  on  the  subject  of  a  proper  thoughtful- 
ness  in  respect  to  death. 

I  meet,  at  the  beginning,  I  know,  with  a  natural  repugnance 
which  we  all  have  at  thinking  of  anything  so  disagreeable.  I 
suppose  that  men  almost  universally  turn  from  the  thought  of 
death  as  uncongenial  to  the  free  play  of  their  faculties ;  as  not  con- 
sorted with  their  ordinary  duties;  as  shadowing  the  joy  of  life; 
as  bringing  with  it  a  check,  a  hindrance,  almost  suffocation  at 
times.  Perhaps  it  may  be  thought  strange,  therefore,  when  I  say 
that  death,  when  rightly  thought  of,  so  far  from  being  an  oppres- 
sion, a  veil,  a  sorrow,  is  that  which  will  give  edge  to  joy.  So  far 
from  suppressing  life,  it  will  give  intensity  to  activity.  So  far  from 
being  a  kind  of  excluding  influence,  withdrawing  men  from  the  en- 
terprise and  the  business  of  life,  the  inspiration  of  death  will  have 
a  tendency  to  enrich  industry,  and  make  life  more  full  in  its  hopes 
and  more  abundant  in  its  results. 

I  protest,  with  you,  against  those  thoughts  of  death  which  are 
distinctively  gloomy ;  and  therefore  I  protest  against  the  baseness 
and  the  unworthiness  of  thinking  of  death  purely  in  its  physical 
asjaects.  I  know  how  the  apostle  felt  when  he  spoke,  in  Corin- 
thians, of  sowing  the  body  in  dishonor. 

"  It  is  sown  in  dishonor,  it  is  raised  in  glory ;  it  is  sown  in  weakness,  it  is 
raised  in  power." 

The  degradation  of  the  body  which  takes  place  in  the  processes 
of  slow  failing  and  dying;  the  transmutation  of  the  features;  the 
abasement  of  all  that  which  Ave  are  accustomed  to  see — these  things 
are  horrible  to  be  contemplated.  I  do  not  hesitate,  therefore,  to 
say  that,  ordinarily,  it  is  anything  but  agreeable  for  me  to  look 
upon  the  face  of  the  dead.  I  sympathize  very  strongly  with  the 
feeliug  of  the  apostle. 

This  is  not  my  friend.  This  is  the  place  where  he  was,  but  this 
is  not  he.  This  face  is  not  the  illumined  face  which  he  bore.  It  is 
not  vital.     It  is  only  dust,  returning  to  the  dust. 

In  the  olden  time  it  was  by  some  (not  by  all,  I  presume)  sup- 
posed to  be  a  wise  thing  for  a  man  to  overhang  the  future,  to 
imagine  how  he  would  feel  when  he  was  dying,  and  to  picture  to 
himself  the  various  steps  of  decline.     In  the  olden  time  it  was 


THO  UGHTS  OF  DBA  TH.  271 

thought  wise  for  a  man  to  have  a  hideous  skull,  a  skeleton,  symbols 
of  death,  before  him,  in  order  that  as  nearly  as  possible  he  might 
have  brought  to  his  mind  the  ghastly  reality. 

At  the  cathedral  in  Winchester,  I  think  it  was,  (one  of  the  most 
beautiful  in  Europe),  I  remember  seeing  the  tomb  of  one  of  the 
prelates  who  had  been  eminent  in  power  and  reputation.  The 
tomb  itself  was  a  most  admirable  work  of  art;  but  he  was  carved 
in  marble,  within,  as  a  skeleton  from  which  the  flesh  had  well- 
nigh  fallen.  T  looked  through  the  reticulations  of  the  marble, 
and  saw  the  ghastly  old  fellow  lying  there.  It  was  supposed  that 
the  spectacle  would  rebuke  the  pride  of  men,  and  turn  their  faces 
away  from  worldliness.  It  produced  utter  loathing  and  revulsion 
in  me,  as  I  think  it  must  in  every  healthy  and  right-minded  man. 
I  do  not  think  it  strange  that  the  young  turn  away  from  those 
tilings.  It  is  a  sign  of  life  and  of  a  good  sound  mind.  That  is  not 
dying.     That  is  not  death. 

Is  that  the  death  of  the  egg  out  of  which  comes  the  young  bird 
and  the  new  life  ?  Would  it  be  wise  to  look  upon  the  shell  that  has 
been  left  in  the  nest  after  the  bird  has  been  hatched  out  of  it,  as  the 
important  thing?  Dying  is  not  what  this  body  is  when  we  have 
got  through  with  it.  And  to  hang  upon  its  dread  look  is  not  wise. 
It  is  morbid  and  unwholesome.  It  is  not  good  for  the  imagination, 
nor  for  the  heart,  nor  for  the  life.  It  disturbs  the  fancy.  It  pollutes 
the  sweet  breath  of  hope.  It  takes  away  from  men  the  sense  of 
dignity.  It  is  not  this  point  of  physical  degeneration  that  it  is 
wholesome  for  men  to  consider. 

Dying  is  simple  transmutation.  Dying  is  changing  form  and 
changing  condition.  It  is  passing  out  from  a  crude  into  a  i*fpe 
state ;  from  a  lower  into  a  higher  realm.  It  is  the  emergence  from 
darkness  into  light.  It  is  the  glorification  of  those  elements  in  man 
Avhich  ally  him  to  God.  It  is  the  spreading  of  the  wings  that  have 
been  undeveloped  before,  or  that  have  been  circumscribed.  It  is 
looked  upon  in  the  Word  of  God  as  release  from  bondage — as  deliv- 
erance from  prison.  It  is  bringing  men  back  from  captivity.  It  is 
setting  them  in  a  larger  sphere.  It  is  crowning  them,  and  giving 
them  a  scepter,  and  making  more  of  them.  He  who  thinks 
wisely  of  death,  gives  a  wide  berth  to  dust  and  decay.  There 
have  l)een  men  who  thouglit  to  make  themselves  more  devout  by 
cpending  days  in  sepulchcrs.  If  worms  are  men's  best  priests,  then 
that  is  the  best  place  for  a  man  to  go  to  church ;  but  if  a  man  be- 
lieves in  the  redemption  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
soul,  and  tliat  dying  is  going  home,  what  business  has  he  to  pre- 
pare himself  for  all  the  glory  of  that  exalted  state  by  contemplating 


272  THOUGHTS  OF  DEATE. 

the  corrupted  body  which  has  been  given  back,  or  which  is  going 
back  to  its  dust  again  ? 

When  I  think  of  death,  I  think  of  immortality.  I  think  of  the 
termination  of  this  period  of  activity  and  of  conscious  exertion  with- 
out regret.  I  think  that  I  am  here  simply  for  growth.  I  think  that 
when  it  shall  please  God  to  call  me  away  from  this  world,  I  shall 
enter  upon  another  state  of  being. 

Let  me  think  that  I  have  but  so  many  years  here,  so  many  du- 
ties, so  much  work  to  perform ;  let  me  keep  in  mind  continually 
that  all  I  do  must  be  compressed  within  certain  bounds ;  let  me 
keep  account  with  myself  from  day  to  day,  and  from  year  to  year, 
with  such  frequency  as  experience  may  show  to  be  wise ;  let  me  be 
mindful  of  how  my  work  goes  on,  of  v/hat  is  doing,  of  what  has  been 
done,  and  of  what  has  been  neglected ;  let  me  so  remember  my  days 
that  I  may  apply  my  heart  to  wisdom.  That  is  the  wise  and  proper 
method  of  tliinking  of  death. 

What  would  be  the  effect  of  such  a  contemplation  ?  Would  it 
throw  shadows  upon  the  mind?  Would  it  turn  a  man  away  from 
the  duties  of  life  ?  A  wise  contemplation  of  the  shortness  of  our 
tarrying  here,  and  of  the  reality  and  the  glory  of  our  inheritance 
hereafter,  will  tend  to  make  a  man  more  faithful  in  his  secular  du- 
ties. We  are  not  chance  atoms  floating  in  this  atmosphere.  We 
are  born  into  life,  under  God's  ordinance,  to  pass  through  its  stages, 
finding  profit  in  its  duties,  in  its  labors,  in  its  joys,  in  its  sufferings, 
and  having,  either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  a  work  wrought 
upon  us  by  which  we  are  being  prepared  for  that  rest  which  remains 
for  the  people  of  God.  Though  we  may  not  be  able  to  trace  the 
connection  between  any  particular  thing  and  the  result  in  our  na- 
ture, it  dignifies  toil,  and  care,  and  labor,  and  burdens,  to  know  that 
we  are  under  an  economy  in  which  we  are  being  schooled  and  de- 
veloped by  those  experiences  in  life  which  take  us  away  from  ita 
physical  aspects,  and  from  their  vulgarity;  and  to  know  that  we  are  un- 
der an  economy  which  is  supervised  by  the  providence  of  our  Father, 
and  out  of  which  is  to  come  a  more  glorified  and  perfected  state. 
We  must  prize  life,  not  because  inherently  we  love  it,  or  perceive 
that  there  is  anything  desirable  in  it,  but  because  we  know  that 
in  a  large  way  through  it  God  developes  manliness  in  us. 

Is  the  traveler  less  interested  in  the  scenes  of  to-day,  because  he 
knows  that  to-morrow  he  will  change  his  point  of  view  and  go  on 
to  some  other  place?  When  men  go  abroad — as  now  they 
are  pouring  in  a  ceaseless  tide  across  the  sea,  to  visit  France, 
and  Switzerland,  and  Italy,  and  Germany,  and  England — do 
you  suppose  that  the  fact  that  they  abide  so  short  a  time  in  any  one 


f 


THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH.  273 

city  takes  away  from  the  interest  which  they  have  in  that  city  ?  If 
they  know  tliat  they  have  but  so  many  days,  do  they  not  give  them- 
selves with  more  alacrity  to  the  seeing  of  those  things  which  one 
who  is  wise  would  wish  to  see  ?  Because  we  are  passing  out  of  life, 
and  because  we  abide  here  but  for  a  day,  is  that  an  argument  why 
we  should  not  be  interested  in  the  economy  and  duties  of  the  day  ? 
Docs  a  true  Avay  of  looking  at  death  dispossess  us  of  fidelity,  and  dis- 
incline us  to  a  faithful  performance  of  the  duties  of  the  hour  ?  No. 
On  tlie  contrary,  it  intensifies  our  fidelity,  and  makes  us  more  active. 
Yea,  a  wise  thought  of  death  will,  I  think,  make  men  better  busi- 
ness men. 

If  you  are  living  at  home,  and  are  not  trained  as  wisely  as  you 
ought  to  be,  one  going  untimely  into  your  room  will  find  your 
raiment  scattered,  and  your  books  and  papers  lying  loose  everywhere ; 
and  if  suddenly  you  were  called  aAvay  it  would  be  impossible  for  you 
to  gather  up  your  effects  and  be  prepared  to  leave  at  a  moment's 
notice.  But  if  a  man  is  traveling  in  Europe,  and  he  stops,  for  in- 
stance, at  Eheims,  over  night,  and  is  to  depart  at  four  o'clock 
the  next  morning,  his  courier  says  to  him,  when  he  retires,  "  Have 
everything  ready,  so  that  we  will  not  need  to  be  detained  a  moment;" 
and  he  does.  The  traveler;  or  one  who  is  perpetually  changing 
places,  keeps  everything  that  he  has  Avilh  him  packed  snug.  If  he 
expects  to  stay  days,  aud  weeks,  and  months,  and  time  is  of  no  ac- 
count to  him,  he  is  apt  to  leave  his  aflfairs  in  a  careless  state,  and  his 
efiects  distributed.  And  so,  men  who  have  no  thought  of  dying 
let  their  affairs  go  on  loosely. 

Men  and  brethren,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  foolish  living  in  the 
physical  aspect,  because  men  have  the  impression  that  they  are  going 
to  live  forever.  They  know  that  they  shall  not;  but  they  live  as  if 
they  expected  to.  And  this  delusion  is  not  confined  to  youth  and 
middle  life,  but  goes  down  into  old  age.  Even  in  their  declining 
years  men  have  the  feeling  that  everybody  else  will  die,  but  that 
they  shall  not  die. 

There  were  three  of  the  class  to  which  my  father  belonged  in 
Yale  who  lived  to  be  old  men,  and  a  few  years  ago,  when  my  father 
was  alive,  an  old  man,  eighty  years  of  age,  infirm  and  quivering, 
came  up  to  me,  and  said,  "  Your  father  and  Staples  and  I  were  in 
the  same  class.  Staples  is  dying  in  J^^ew  York  ;  and  when  your  fa- 
ther dies,  I  wish  you  would  tell  mo.  I  shall  then  be  the  remnant  of 
the  class."  Everybody  but  him,  he  thought,  was  going  to  die! 
There  was  no  consciousness  in  his  mind  that  he  was  to  go.  And 
60  we  train  ourselves,  by  habitual  inconsideration,  to  the  vague  feel- 
ing that  there  is  an  endless  period  of  time  sLill  lying  before  us.  But 


274  THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH. 

where  men  have  the  feeling  that  their  time  is  limited,  and  that  it 
may  be  cut  short  at  any  moment,  they  keep  their  affairs  closely 
jointed,  well  budded,  safely  harnessed. 

It  is  very  seldom,  when  a  man  comes  to  die,  that  he  is  prepared, 
even  in  his  outward  life,  to  leave.  His  household  economy  is  not 
as  it  would  have  been  if  he  had  expected  the  summons.  His  busi- 
ness affairs  are  not  as  they  would  have  been  if  he  had  anticipated 
being  called  away.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  a  Christian  fidelity 
should  lead  every  man,  as  far  as  possible,  each  year,  to  adjust  his 
affairs  so  that  if  he  should  die  his  household  would  not  be  subjected 
to  any  loss,  and  no  trouble  would  be  entailed  on  his  executors.  The 
duty  of  leaving  his  affairs  in  such  a  shape  that  they  can  be  easily 
taken  care  of  after  his  death,  is  incumbent  upon  every  man. 

Are  you  living  so  ?  Think  of  what  would  happen  if  you  should 
die  to-morrow.  It  would  not  hurt  anybody  to  think  of  the  condi- 
tion of  his  property  in  the  light  of  his  probable  or  possible  death. 
What  are  your  plans  ?  Are  you  not  like  a  vessel  with  its  sails  spread 
from  the  deck  to  the  topmost  spar,  while  a  storm  is  breeding  which 
you  know  nothing  about  ? 

Oaptain  Knight  said  that  once  he  looked  up  in  his  berth  and 
saw  the  barometer  plunging  down  in  a  manner  which  indicated  a 
marked  change  in  the  atmosphere  ;  and  that  he  rushed  on  deck  and 
called  all  the  hands  up,  and  had  them  take  in  sail,  though  there 
was  a  brilliant  sky  overhead.  The  men  thought  that  he  was  crazy 
to  begin  to  trim  the  ship  then  ;  and  yet,  before  they  could  get  in 
all  their  sail  there  arose  a  storm  which  struck  them,  and  came  near 
foundering  them,  as  it  was.  They  struggled  many  hours,  and  just 
managed  to  save  themselves.  It  was  by  the  prophecy  of  this  dumb 
instrument  that  they  were  saved. 

Many  men  glide  along  on  the  tranquil  sea  of  life  all  unconscious 
that  eternity  is  coming,  and  that  it  will  sweep  everything  before  it, 
and  perhaps  send  them  to  the  bottom.  How  many  men  I  have  seen 
who  have  been  carried  down  by  bankruptcy  time  and  again !  How 
many  times  have  I  seen  men  heart-broken  by  reason  of  their  failure 
in  business  !  How  many  men  have  I  attempted  to  comfort  in  the 
pressure  of  their  affairs!  And  when  they  were  drawing  near  to 
death,  what  a  mercy  it  was  that  they  did  not  know  what  a  storm 
was  brewing,  because  the  indications  of  it  ^XQre■  hidden  from  their 
Bight !  Wliat  a  blessing  it  was  that  they  did  not  foresee  the  shatter- 
ing of  their  enterprises,  the  dispersion  of  their  households,  the  care 
and  sorrow  of  their  loved  ones,  the  disappointment  of  those  that 
were  near  and  dear  to  them,  and  the  revolution  that  would  take 
place,  because  they  had  been  living  without  any  wise  consideration 


^ 


THO  UGETS  OF  BE  A  TH.  275 

of  the  imminence  of  death,  and  of  the  condition  of  things  which 
would  exist  should  they  suddenly  die!  I  hold  that  every  man,  as  a 
part  of  his  business  and  economy,  should  measure  the  probable 
duration  of  his  life,  not  by  the  tables  of  life  insurance  companies, 
but  on  the  principle  which  our  Saviour  laid  down  when  he  said, 
"  In  such  an  hour  as  ye  think  not,  the  Son  of  man  cometh." 

Yes,  go  to  the  physician ;  let  him,  with  auscultation,  prophesy  a 
long  life  for  you ;  let  him  sound  your  lungs,  and  pronounce  them 
all  right ;  let  him  examine  your  digestion,  and  testify  that  it  is 
good  ;  and  on  the  strength  of  his  judgment  let  the  company  take 
the  risk,  and  you  go  smiling  away ;  and  the  next  week  we  hear  of  a 
funeral,  and  you  are  gone.  You  have  the  promise  and  prophecy 
that  you  shall  live  on  and  on ;  and  yet,  in  such  an  hour  as  you  think 
not  the  Son  of  man  comes,  and  all  the  threads  in  the  loom  snap. 

Worse  than  that,  death  oftentimes  is  as  the  explosion  of  a  bomb 
in  a  man's  house,  which,  as  it  explodes,  tears  everything  asunder. 
It  is  a  wise  thing  if  a  man  is  brought  up,  in  regard  to  his  business, 
so  as  to  keep  a  thought  ahead  of  his  possible  departure,  and  to  have 
his  affairs  in  a  condition  in  which  he  shall  not  leave  a  long  train  of 
ruin  behind  him.  In  the  cases  of  many  men  it  does  not  make  any 
difference  how  and  when  they  die.  It  will  not  be  possible  for  them 
to  leave  things  in  any  worse  condition  than  they  are  in  at  present; 
but  there  are  many  men  who,  if  they  are  not  wise  while  they  are 
living,  will,  when  they  die,  strew  misery  with  a  broad  trail  behind 
them. 

So,  then,  a  wise  consideration  of  the  shortness  of  life,  and  of  im- 
pending death,  instead  of  discouraging  effort,  will  quicken  it ;  in- 
stead of  tending  to  make  men  less  careful  about  worldly  affairs,  will 
tend  to  make  them  more  considerate  in  regard  to  them. 

Due  thought  of  the  termination  of  this  life,  and  of  the  beginning 
of  the  life  that  is  beyond  it,  will  make  life  itself  sweeter,  and  the  enjoy- 
ment  of  life  better.  No  matter  how  richly  endowed  men  may  be,  no 
man  really  gets  his  true  colors,  no  man  ever  has  a  full  sense  of  depth 
and  breadth  and  strength,  whose  thoughts  are  not  accustomed  to 
take  flight  into  the  infinite,  the  invisible  and  the  eternal.  Creatures 
of  time,  bearing  upon  themselves  the  impress  of  the  secular  periods, 
and  of  these  only,  however  richly  endowed,  want  a  certain  compre- 
heniion.  There  is  a  certain  shallowness  about  them.  We  can  al- 
most feel  the  atmosphere  of  men  who  are  accustomed  to  ponder  the 
themes  of  the  eternal  world.  It  gives  volume  and  vastness  to  the 
ways  and  the  courses  of  tliis  life. 

I  like  to  see  the  loves  of  birds  and  of  butterflies  ;  and  yet  what 
are  these  wavering  loves,  which  come  and  expire  in  the  atmosphere  ? 


276  TEO  UGHT^  OF  DBA  IE. 

What  is  it  that  makes  human  love  nobler  than  the  chirping  love 
of  birds,  but  this — duration,  and  its  promise  ?  Take  away  the 
reality  of  men's  faith  in  the  world  to  come,  and  how  shallow  the 
affections  of  this  world  are !  They  have  all  the  feebleness  and  all 
the  flaAvs  of  time  upon  them.  The  comforting  view  is  that,  love  as 
poorly  as  I  may  here,  I  am  but  learning  to  love.  My  life  on  earth 
is  not  what  I  seek  to  make  it ;  it  is  like  uncombed  flax,  full  of  the 
sticks  of  that  on  which  it  grows.  Peace,  and  gentleness,  and  self-denial, 
and  heroism  in  loving,  and  the  outpouring  upon  others  of  that  love 
which  never  grows  old,  in  the  thought  of  God  or  of  those  that  are 
with  him — these  are  the  things  which  result  from  a  wise  ponder- 
ing of  death  and  the  future.  And  if  we  have  no  such  experience, 
what  are  our  affections  in  life  ?  How  poor  they  are  !  How  unrich 
they  are !  Of  how  little  worth  they  are  !  It  is  the  want  of  a  back- 
ground to  men's  hearts  that  makes  those  hearts  so  flat  and  so 
poor.  The  heroism  of  love,  its  grandeur,  the  glory  of  its  fidelity, 
the  beauty  of  its  life,  its  atmosphere,  its  horizon,  and  the  vast  and 
crystal  dome  of  expectation  that  rise  above  it — it  is  these  things 
Avhich  exalt  men,  which  develop  them,  which  make  heroism  deep, 
and  which  make  sacrifices  of  virtue  and  of  affection  preeminently 
noble,  enriching  and  satisfying.  It  is  in  the  highest  degree  essential 
that  men  should  have  a  sense  of  the  other  life. 

Ah,  how  a  sense  of  our  departing  from  those  whom  we  h)ve 
quickens  our  fidelity  while  we  are  among  them !  How  many 
mothers  have  looked  in  the  face  of  the  child  as  it  lay  in  marble  be- 
fore them,  and  said, "  Oh,  if  I  had  only  knoAvn,  with  what  zeal  would 
I  have  taught!  With  what  devotion  would  I  have  dealt  with  this 
dear  one  !     But  it  is  too  late  !" 

When  our  companions,  that  have  borne  with  us  the  heat  and 
burden  of  the  day,  are  gone,  how  many  ten  thousand  things  we 
think  of  that  we  have  done,  but  that  we  never  would  have  done  if 
we  haf^  only  known  that  death  would  take  tliem !  We  reproach 
ourselves.  The  heart  Incomes  a  judgment-seat,  and  we  stand  before 
it  culprits.  We  remember  our  temper,  and  our  pride,  and  our  selfish- 
ness, and  our  ambition.  We  remember  how  little  we  availed  our- 
selves of  the  golden  hours  of  a  noble  confidence.  We  remember 
how  little  we  strove  for  things  divine.  And  we  say,  "  Oh,  that  I 
nad  that  life  to  live  over  again  !     But  it  is  too  late !" 

If  by  forethought,  then,  men  would  but  carefully  take  into 
account  the  shortness  of  their  life,  how  it  Avould  tend  to 
intensify  virtue  in  the  household!  How  it  would  tend  to  deepen 
the  fountains  of  affection !  How  it  would  tend  to  quicken  those 
ten  thousand  fidelities  which  redeem  time  from  vulgarity,  and  make 


THO  UGIITS  OF  DBA TE.  211 

the  >  'd't  of  mortals  the  life  of  angelic  creatures !  We  are  sons 
of  God;  but  we  forget  it,  because  we  do  not  wear  our  crown.  We 
forget  th»,t  we  have  one.  We  are  dwelling  with  peasants,  with  vul- 
gar assocwtes,  and  we  take  on,  their  ways,  as  it  were ;  and  yet,  we 
are  sons  of  God.  And  he  that  thinks  wisely  of  dying  and  of  living 
again  has  brought  to  his  memory  what  he  is.  He  lias  borne  back 
upon  him  a  consciousness  of  his  birthright  which  makes  him  a 
sweeter  and  purer  and  wiser  and  nobler  man. 

Have  you  ever  stood  by  the  bedside  of  those  that  you  loved 
when  they  were  dying  ?  Do  you  remember  your  experience  then  ? 
Do  you  remember  what  thoughts  plowed  your  soul  ?  Perhaps 
God  gave  back  your  friends.  Perhaps  he  took  them  to  himself. 
Have  you  been  made  as  much  wiser  by  that  experience  as  then  you 
thought  that  you  should  be  ?  Has  the  remembrance  of  the  near- 
ness of  death,  of  its  certainty,  and  of  the  effect  that  it  would  have 
upon  you  and  your  affections,  borne  the  fruit  which  you  thought  it 
would  ?  Have  these  things  been  in  you  as  a  revelation  and  as  a 
divine  inspiration  ? 

So,  too,  a  wise  consideration  of  dying  inspires  moderation  in 
men.  The  immoderation  of  this  life  consists  in  using  one  part  of 
ourselves  at  the  expense  of  another.  It  consists  in  giving  the 
whole  of  our  fidelity  to  a  limited  sphere,  to  a  few  things,  instead  of 
rounding  up  the  Avhole  circle  of  our  endowment.  Thus  men  are 
living  so  that  they  are  not  a  tenth  part  men.  They  live  using  their 
little  finger,  as  it  were — not  their  whole  hand;  and  still  less  both 
hands.  But  though tfulness  of  the  nearness  of  death,  and  of  our 
liability  to  die  at  any  time,  tends  to  produce  moderation  in  desire.  It 
tends  to  restrain  over-eager  appetites.  Especially  it  tends  to  check 
those  wild  outbursts  to  which  we  are  subject.  It  compels  us  to 
measure  again  that  which  we  have  measured  hastily. 

Where  a  man  has  builded  his  house,  and  sheltered  his  household, 
and  accumulated  enough  for  food  and  raiment,  for  intelligence,  for 
knowledge,  for  the  satisfaction  of  every  rational  appetite  ;  where  a 
man  is  living  so  as  to  be  able  to  secure  food  for  every  part  of  him- 
self, it  would  seem  as  though  he  might  give  his  mind  to  something 
higher  and  nobler  than  the  mere  accumulation  of  wealth  ;  but  he 
goes  on  building  more,  and  earning  more.  How  many  of  you 
would  be  Avilling  to  make  a  league  and  covenant  with  God 
to  discharge  your  mind  of  covetousness  when  you  had  acquired 
enough  to  secure  for  yourself  and  family  all  the  rational  enjoy- 
ments of  life  !  And  yet,  when  you  have  secured  these  things,  you 
will  go  on  still  in  the  insane  ambition  for  wealth.  There  are  men 
in  New  York  who  have  money  enough  for  a  million  men.     There 


278  TEO  UGMTS  OF  DBA  IE. 

are  single  men  there  who  have  enough  money  for  a  small  nation. 
What  good  does  it  do  them  ?  What  use  is  it  to  them  ?  They  are 
nothing  but  their  own  uuhired  clerks.  The  greater  part  of  their 
possessions  can  never  minister  directly  to  them,  except  in  the  mis- 
erably poor  way  of  ambition.  And  what  is  the  ambition  of  figures  ? 
If  a  man  has  ten  millions  of  dollars  in  America,  he  would  not  be 
worth  any  more  if  he  had  twenty  millions.  He  has  outrun  his 
own  power  of  computation  and  realization  and  use ;  and  all  that 
wealth  which  lies  outside  of  a  man's  use  is  so  much  surplusage. 
What  would  it  avail  me  if  I  owned  a  section  of  land  ten  miles  wide 
through  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  ?  How  much  of  it  could  I  cultivate,  or 
even  look  at  ?  What  could  I  do  with  it,  if  I  had  it  ?  There  is  such 
a,  thing  as  being  made  poor  by  abundance.  And  yet,  men  go  on 
seeking  wealth  with  an  insane  ambition.  They  do  it  after  God  has 
given  them  token  after  tok6n  of  their  quick-coming  end.  He  has 
marked  them  with  one  sign  after  another.  He  has  Avarned  them  by 
the  eye,  and  by  the  ear.  He  has  stamped  his  signet  on  their  hair, 
and  in  their  wrinkles.  They  ache  with  signals  of  mortality.  But 
still  they  will  not  let  go.  They  die  with  their  hand  clenched,  and 
with  their  money  in  their  hand ;  their  hand  perishes,  and  their 
money  with  it ;  and  they  go  to  give  up  their  empty  account  before 
God. 

Now,  if  a  man  had  a  thought  of  himself  as  a  responsible  crea- 
ture, going  from  this  lower  sphere  to  a  higher  one,  and  marked  the 
changes  which  occur  in  his  advance  toward  death,  do  you  not  sup- 
pose that  it  would  tend  to  correct  this  immoderation — this  fantasy 
of  desiring  more  than  he  can  manage  or  use  or  enjoy  ? 

How  many  men  there  are  who,  for  want  of  some  wise  prevision, 
some  prudent  consideration  of  death,  leave  pretty  much  all  their 
plans  to  ravel  out  after  they  are  gone  !  When  the  careful  house- 
wife has  knit  through  the  day,  and  brought  her  stocking  or  glove, 
to  its  termination,  she  will  not  let  it  go  till  she  has  fastened  the 
thread  so  that  the  child's  hand  shall  not  ravel  out  her  work  :  but 
how  many  men  leave  their  work  in  such  a  condition  that  all  that 
they  have  been  doing  ravels  out ! 

Here  are  men  who  intended,  when  they  should  have  advanced 
to  a  certain  state  and  condition,  to  have  done  great  things.  They 
were  just  on  the  point  of  doing  them  when  they  were  thirty-five  years 
old.  There  were  great  generosities  Avhich  they  did  not  mean  to 
omit.  They  were  bound  not  to  live  for  nothing.  They  were  al- 
ways going  to  leave  their  mark  on  the  world.  They  were  going  to 
leave  their  mark  on  the  world  at  forty.  They  were  going  to  leave 
their  mark  on  the  world  at  forty-five.    And,  finally,  at  forty-six, 


THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH.  279 

they  left  it,  in  the  shape  of  a  grave.  They  died  with  all  their 
plans  unaccomplished. 

There  are  men  who  mean  to  build  and  leave  hospitals.  There 
are  men  who  mean  to  build  and  leave  schools.  There  are  men  who 
mean  to  found  charities  here,  aud  endow  beneficent  institutions 
yonder.  There  are  men  who  have  been  working  and  working, 
and  saying,  "  "When  I  get  enough  for  my  household,  then  I  am 
going  to  work  for  God  and  mankind."  Time  runs  on,  and  still  they 
are  telling  what  they  mean  to  do.  They  continue  to  amass 
wealth,  and  so  to  prepare  themselves  for  the  benevolent  enterprises 
which  they  have  in  view.  At  last  they  will  die,  having  done  none  of 
these  things. 

It  is  not  wise  for  a  man  to  let  death  distribute  his  charities.  It 
is  not  best  to  leave  your  wealth  to  be  scattered  by  death.  Death  is 
a  poor  distributor.  If  God  gives  you  skill  for  amassing  the  power 
of  wealth,  see  that  you  build  while  you  are  living.  Begin  to  build 
early,  according  to  your  means,  and  keep  on  building,  and  saying, 
"  I  must  work  the  works  of  him  that  sent  me,  while  it  is  day ;  the 
night  cometh,  when  no  man  can  work." 

Do  you  mean  to  write  hymns  that  shall  be  like  God's  angels 
singing  hope  in  the  hearts  of  desponding  men  ?  Write  them  now. 
Do  you  mean  to  sound  out  influences  that  shall  make  the  neighbor- 
hood purer  and  sweeter,  that  shall  straighten  the  things  which  are 
crooked,  and  that  shall  leave  the  Avays  of  life  clearer?  Begin  the 
work  of  reformation  now.  Do  you  mean  to  set  on  foot  beneficent 
institutions  of  art  and  culture  which  shall  work  for  humanity  when 
yon  are  gone  ?  Do  it  now.  For  the  most  part,  men  work  their 
threescore  years  and  ten,  and  then  disappear,  and  are  forgotten  ; 
but  it  pleases  God  to  give  to  some  men  the  power  of  an  earthly 
immortality.  He  who  frames  into  noble  English  discourse  the 
truths  which  every  human  soul  needs,  and  gives  it  to  the  wind,  lives 
on  when  he  is  dead.  He  who  breathes  truth  in  a  poem,  and  gives 
it  wings,  so  that  it  goes  through  the  air  cheering  men,  lives  after 
death.  And  if  men  organize  their  wealth  into  institutions  for  good, 
they  live  in  these  institutions  for  thousands  of  years.  What  men 
do  in  life  cannot  be  compared  with  what  they  might  do  by  organ- 
ized influences  that  sound  down  into  the  life  which  is  to  come. 
When  a  man  thinks  how  little  he  can  do  in  his  lifetime,  what  a 
comfort  it  must  be  to  know  how  much  he  can  do  after  his  life  has 
ceased  here  by  endowments  and  investments  which  shall  go  on  per- 
forming Avoiks  of  beneficence  and  liumanity  for  centuries  to  come. 
And  if  men  only  thought,  "  To  do  anything  I  must  do  it  speedily," 
how  many  of  them  could  duplicate,  quadruple,  quintuple,  sextuple 


280  THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH. 

their  life  and  their  deeds  long  after  they  had  gone  back  to  dust ! 
But  no  man  will  live  thus  wisely  unless  he  lives  with  the  thought, 
"  "What  I  do  I  must  do  speedily." 

There  be  some  that  hear  me  to-night  whose  attention  is  arrested, 
and  whose  thoughts  are  stirred  up.  You  will  go  away,  saying 
"  That  is  a  considerate  view.  It  conforms  to  my  best  judgment.  I 
mean  to  live  in  accordance  with  it."'  But  alas!  these  resolutions 
will  go  with  tlie  morning  cloud.  There  will  be  a  transient  ripple 
across  your  thought,  but  you  will  plunge  again  into  your  incon- 
siderate Avays.  You  will  forget  to  do  what  you  ought  to  do.  Some 
of  you  have  restitutions  that  you  ought  to  make  before  yon 
sleep.  There  are  reparations  that  you  owe  to  one  and  another 
which  ought  to  be  made  before  you  die.  You  are  in  danger  of 
going  out  of  life  before  you  have  attended  to  these  things.  You 
have  not  done  all  that  you  ought  to  do  for  your  children.  If  it 
were  made  known  to  you  that  this  night  you  would  die,  you  would 
feel  that  you  had  not  done  all  in  your  family  that  you  fain  would 
do.  Your  friendships  are  not  in  such  a  condition  that  you  can 
afford  to  leave  them  just  now.     They  have  not  been  rich  enough. 

In  the  corn-field  I  plant  a  morning-glory.  The  corn  itself  is 
beautiful — the  noblest  grass  that  grows  out  of  the  ground.  And 
yet,  when  I  see  the  convolvulus  twine  around  about  it,  and  at  every 
axil  send  out  those  graceful  salvers,  those  excpiisite  cups,  how  much 
more  beautiful  are  they  than  that  on  which  they  liang! 

Friendships  in  life  are  very  noble — substantial,  hearty,  genuine 
friendships;  but  oh,  what  exquisite  tastes,  what  spiritual  refine- 
ments, Wluit  touches  of  grace  and  beauty,  coming  from  faith  in 
God,  sliould  there  be  around  about  your  friendships! 

How  vulgar  is  much  in  your  family !  How  unsatisfactory  is 
your  intercourse  Avith  men!  How  scrawny  your  virtues  are!  How 
poor  a  life  you  have  been  living!  You  Avould  blush  to  meet  Christ. 
You  are  not  fit  to  meet  him.  I  do  not  charge  you  with  vices  and 
crimes,  but  I  do  charge  you  with  being  pigmies.  You  are  dwarfs. 
You  are  not  educated.  Your  powers  of  soul  are  not  brought  out. 
You  are  comparatively  in  a  low  state,  degraded,  undeveloped, 
stunted.  You  are  not  stimulating  yourselves.  You  do  not  live  as 
seeing  Him  wlio  is  invisible. 

The  thought  that  is  laid  out  in  the  New  Testament  is  exquis- 
itely beautiful  as  well  as  pertinent.  We  are  to  live  as  those  who  are 
expecting  to  go  to  a  wedding.  We  do  not  know  at  what  hour  of 
the  night  the  voice  of  tlie  bridegroom  shall  be  heard. 

The  virgin,  all  tremulous  with  love,  has  spent  the  day  in  decora- 
tion ;  and  the  hair,  the  complexion,  the  eye,  the  hand,  every  part 


THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH.  281 

of  the  body,  are,  by  garments,  by  adornments,  by  flowers,  and  by 
purifications,  brought  to  tlie  highest  condition  of  attractiveness, 
because  the  hour  is  drawing  nearer  and  nearer  when  the  one  most 
fond  will  call  to  lead  her  to  her  espousal. 

Oh,  soul  of  man,  that  is  to  be  wedded  to  God,  the  hour  of  thine 
espousal  is  drawing  near ;  and  where  is  thy  beautiful  apparel  ? 
Where  are  the  sweet  odors  ?  Where  is  that  Avhich  shall  make  thee 
comely  in  the  sight  of  Him  who  calls  for  thee  ? 

Men  and  brethren,  we  are  not  ready  to  go  to  heaven  yet.  We 
are  not  ready  to  meet  the  love  of  Him  who  is  most  glorious  in  the 
fullness  of  a  divine  life.  We  are  not  prepared  to  go  into  the  pres- 
ence of  Him  that  suffered  for  us.  Look  up,  look  away,  a  little 
while.  Forget  the  things  which  sound  in  your  ears  from  day  to 
day,  long  enough  to  take  the  meaning  of  this  life,  and  to  measure 
it  upon  the  scale  of  the  life  which  is  to  come.  Wake  up  the  things 
that  are  asleep  in  you,  and  put  to  sleep  the  things  that  rage  there, 
and  bring  yourself  into  that  glorious  atmosphere  in  which  you  shall 
see  that  which  is  not  to  be  seen  by  the  natural  eye,  that  which  is 
beyond  your  reach,  that  you  may  have  a  foretaste  of  that  rest  which 
remaineth  for  the  people  of  God. 


PEAYER  BEFOEE  THE  SEEMON. 

Thou  stretchest  the  heaven  above  our  head,  and  thence  distill  innumer- 
able merciea.  By  thy  hand,  O  God,  the  earth  is  turned,  and  the  appointed 
seasons  come,  bringins?  their  blessings.  Night  and  day  are  we  recipients  of 
thy  mercies.  We  have  no  need  to  pray  for  the  light  of  the  sun,  nor  for 
enriching  showers,  nor  for  summer,  nor  for  winter,  since  all  these  things 
come  with  continual  procession  from  thy  provident  care.  We  rejoice  in 
tliese  bounties,  and  desire  to  sanctify  them  by  our  own  using,  with  a  sense 
of  thy  power  and  of  thy  gooduess  manifested  in  them.  We  desire  to  stamp 
upon  them  the  thought  of  God,  to  bear  about  with  us  evermore  the 
sense  of  thy  presence,  aod  to  augment  the  sense  of  our  own  joy,  and  of  the 
dignity  of  our  life,  and  of  our  hope  in  thee.  We  have  need,  day  by  day,  to 
pray  for  the  mercies  of  thy  presence— for  the  realization  of  ihylove.  We 
need  that  touch  of  inspirdtion  by  which  we  can  rise  higher  than  the 
sense's  contact;  by  which  we  shall  discern  iuvisiole  things;  by  which  we 
shall  pierce  the  veil,  aud  see  realities  that  lie  befiiud  and  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  eye.  Grant  uuto  us  this  eompaiiiodsliip,  this  blessed  realization  of  thy 
presence  and  of  thy  love  toward  us,  an-l  to  each  one  of  us  individually. 
Have  sympathy  with  us  in  all  those  troubles  by  which  we  emerge  from  our 
birth-3! ate  into  the  glorious  libi^rty  of  the  sous  of  God.  Have  compassion 
upou  us  in  all  our  inllrmilies.  Have  mercy  upon  us  in  all  our  transgressions. 
Inspire  in  us  a  hatred  of  those  things  which  bear  us  down  and  deflle  us,  and 
a  love  for  tho-  e  things  which  lift  us  up  and  purify  us  and  bring  us  into 


282  THO  UGETS  OF  DBA  TH. 

thine  own  presence.  We  pray  <hat  thou  wilt  guard  u%  in  the  hours  oi 
strength,  lest  through  presumption  we  stumble  and  fall ;  and  we  pray  that 
thou  wilt  guard  us  in  the  hours  of  weakness,  lest  from  faintness  of  heart  and 
coTvardice  we  give  up.  Keep  us,  we  beseech  of  thee,  iu  all  prosperity,  that 
we  may  not  be  unduly  elated  by  it,  and  grow  proud,  and  think  it  is  the 
strength  of  our  own  hand  alone,  and  behold  the  help  of  God  by  which  we 
have  maintained  our  places.  Grant  that  in  the  day  of  adversity  we  may  not 
laint,  knowing  that  there  is  growth  iu  darkness  as  well  as  in  light;  that 
night  has  its  mercies  as  well  as  day.  May  we  be  strong  in  the  Lord,  and  be 
able,  througli  all  the  changes  of  time  and  season,  steadfastly  to  maintain 
our  faith  and  our  hope.  Oh,  that  Miou  wouldst  grant  us  such  a  release 
from  the  bondage  and  ihrall  of  time  that  we  might  know  our  destiny,  and 
feel  that  we  are  God's  sous,  and  tliat  our  inheritance  transcends  the 
measure  of  r.ny  earthly  possession  !  May  we  not  fear  the  strength  of  man's 
liand.  May  we  not  fear  what  men  can  do  unto  us.  May  our  thoughts  so 
move  toward  thee,  and  in  the  royalties  of  the  realms  above,  that  we  shall  be 
able,  while  surrounded  hy  len  Ihoutand  mischie.s  and  evils,  still  to  rejoice 
in  the  Lord,  though  we  may  not  rejoice  in  men.  May  we  be  able  to  rejoice 
in  our  eternal  inheritance,  though  we  seem  to  ourselves  broken  down  and 
impoverished. 

We  pray  that  thy  blessing  may  rest,  this  evening,  upon  those  who  have 
enteied  into  thiue  hou^e.  Thou  hast  made  this  a  very  gate  of  heaven  to 
many  souls.  Thou  hast  here  met  the  mourner,  and  wiped  away  Irs  tears. 
Thou  hast  here  met  those  who  were  weighed  down  with  care,  and  lightened 
their  burdens.  Thou  hast  taught  the  ignorant.  Taou  hast  restrained  those 
that  were  goiag  astray.  TIiou  hast  rec.illeJ  the  wanderer.  Taou  hast 
baptized  with  joy  those  that  were  filied  with  mourning.  Toou  hast  made 
this  place  sacred  by  the  works  of  mercy  which  thou  hist  wrouj;ht  in  it. 
And  we  come  again  expectant.  We  always  corns  knowmg  that  we  shall 
meet  thee  here.  And  grant,  we  beseech  of  thee,  this  evening,  taat  those 
who  are  in  thy  presence  may  feel  that  God  thinks  of  them  by  name;  that 
he  knows  all  their  sorrow,  and  all  their  care,  and  all  their  fear,  an  1  all  their 
trouble  of  every  kind,  even  to  the  uttermost  recesses  of  their  hearts.  We 
pray  ihao  ail  may  open  wide  the  door  for  tDee  to  come  in,  and  that  they 
may  be  cleansed  Ijy  ttie  indwelling  spirit  of  God,  and  receive  true  wisdom 
r,nd  comfort,  and  be  i^reparcd  for  all  the  duties  of  the  day,  and  all  the  events 
of  life. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  remember  those  who  are  sepai^ated 
from  us — our  dear  friends,  our  brethren  in  Christ  Jesus,  all  that  are 
sea  tered  wide  abroad,  up  and  down  in  the  earth.  They  are  all  in  one 
place  to  thine  eye  Grant  tbat  in  tbee  we  may  desire  them  d£y  by  day,  and 
that  we  may  iu  ihe  hour  of  prayer  meet  them  aj.'aiu,  and  lind  them  aa 
under  the  shadow  of  thy  wing. 

Grant,  O  Lord,  that  our  varied  experiences  from  day  to  day  may  pre- 
pare us  for  that  higher  life  which  impends  over  us.  May  we  not  shrink 
from  it.  May  we  laljor  so  tbat  we  shall  be  accepted  of  God  at  whatever 
hour  tbis  life  may  end.  May  we  not  count  it  dear,  nor  seek  to  prolong  if., 
iior  dread  its  lerminatlou.  Whatever  mercies  thou  dost  minister  to  us 
through  the  hour.i  and  the  days  of  our  pilgrimage  here,  may  we  be  willing 
to  lay  down  the  burden  at  any  time  whea  thou  shalt  summon  us.  May  we 
listen  for  thy  call.  As  men  wait  and  watch  for  the  morning  through  the 
weariness  of  the  hours  of  the  night,  so  may  it  be  given  us  to  long  for  our 
XQs,t — to  be  homesick  for  lieaven.  Thus  we  beseech  of  thee  that  we  may  be 
drawn  toward  thee  iu  spirit  as  well  as  in  expectation,  so  that,  at  last,  when 
the  permission-shall  come,  and  the  welcome  angel  shall  appear  to  call  us 


THOUGHTS  OF  DEATH.  283 

home,  we  may  rise  vrith  great  joy  and  seek  our'Father's  house.  And  there, 
blessed  forever  in  thy  presence,  and  exalted  by  thy  love  to  the  full  stature 
of  men  in  Christ  Jesus,  we  will  give  the  whole  praise  of  our  salvation  to 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMOI^. 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bring  near  to  us  the  thought  of  our 
better  life.  Transform  us  to  ourselves.  In  the  glass  of  faith  may  we  behold 
wbat  we  are  to  be,  and  by  that  may  we  rebuke  that  which  we  are.  Give  us 
some  sense  of  the  dignity  of  our  final  manhood,  that  we  may  turn  back  and 
look  at  the  things  of  which  we  are  vain  and  proud,  and  see  how  poor  they 
are.  How  puffed  up  we  are  in  life!  How  we  measure  and  overmeasure 
ourselves !  How  we  leave  out  of  our  estimate  the  tbings  that  most  concern 
us !  Dear  Lord,  dost  thou  love  such  as  we  are?  And  if  thou  lovest  us,  why 
art  thou  so  long  in  shaping  us  to  wisdom  ?  Why  art  thou  so  long  in  rousing 
up  in  us  salutary  and  remedial  hope  ?  Grant  that  we  may  be,  more  and 
more,  children  of  God,  not  by  name,  but  by  inspiration.  May  we  feel  our 
dignity.  May  all  our  desires  take  on  the  pattern  of  the  future  life.  And 
chastened,  moderated,  made  more  earnest,  industrious,  and  faithful,  may 
we  so  build  that  when  we  leave  tnis  world  something  shall  remain  here  for 
others  as  a  foundation  on  which  to  build.  And  grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  at 
last,  when  our  work  is  accomplished,  we  may  be  more  than  Avilling  to  go. 
Why  should  wc  live  ?  What  has  life  more  than  disappointment  ?  What 
fountain  is  there  that  does  not  fail— wiiose  waters  do  not  turn  to  bitterness? 
What  joys  are  there  that  the  warmth  of  our  hands  in  plucking  do  not  wilt? 
Grant,  wi-  b-isi^ecii  of  tiiee,  that  we  may  have  such  a  measure  of  the  joy  of 
the  heavenly  life  taa.  we  shall  be  glad  to  leave  this  world.  May  we  desire 
to  depart  and  be  with  Christ,  which  is  better  than  life.  And  when  we  see 
thee,  O  thou  crowned  Saviour,  on  whose  brow  love  sits— when  we  see  thee 
as  thou  art,  and  not  as  with  the  imagination — then  we  will  give  the  praise  of 
our  salvation  to  thee,  with  the  Father,  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  forever  and 
ever.    Amen. 


XVI. 

The  Religious*  Uses  of  Music. 


INVOCATION. 

We  never  ask  thee  in  vain,  our  Father ;  for  thou  dost  move  within  us 
those  thoughts  and  desires  which  thou  art  pleased  to  gratify,  making  often 
intercession  with  groanings  that  cannot  be  uttered,  for  us.  We  rejoice  in  the 
greatness  of  thy  power,  and  the  greatness  of  the  power  of  thy  love  and  thy 
sympathy.  We  draw  near,  this  morning,  praying  that  we  may  be  lifted  up 
into  communion  with  thee,  and  that  thy  shadow  may  fall  down  upon  us  as 
the  shadow  of  a  rock  in  a  weary  land.  We  rejoice  that  this  day  we  may 
trust  in  thee,  and  rest  in  thee,  and  be  satisfied.  Wilt  thou  inspire  our  minds 
in  all  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  to  instruct,  to  rejoice  in  fellowship,  to 
commuTie,  to  draw  near  to  thee,  by  faith  and  love.  Help  us  in  every  service 
of  the  day,  here  and  at  home,  and  may  this  be  one  of  the  Lord's  days, 
indeed,  in  our  souls.    We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 

16. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC, 


"Speaking  to  yourselves  in  psalms  and  hymns    and  spiritual  songs,  sing- 
and  making  melody  in  your  heart  to  the  Lord."— Eph.  v.  19. 


Among  the  themes  of  gratulation  in  our  times,  is  the  great 
development  of  music.  Every  kind — secular  and  religious,  vocal 
and  instrumental — has  had  a  vast  progress  within  the  memory  of 
this  generation.  In  our  childhood  there  was  very  little  music  except 
singing — and  that  was  not  ecstatic.  The  reaction  of  the  Puritans 
against  music  had  well-nigh  extinguished  it,  until  the  present  gener- 
ation. The  first  efforts  to  introduce  music  into  New  England  by 
the  pitch-pipe  were  regarded  by  the  more  anxious  and  cautious,  who 
are  ever  alert  to  watcli  the  devil,  as  the  very  finger  of  Satan  him- 
self; and  soon  after,  when  bass  viols  and  flutes  began  to  be  employed 
as  auxiliaries  to  the  choir  they  were  resisted  in  regular  battle ;  and 
when  the  organ  advanced,  there  were  not  a  few  who  felt  that  the 
church  had  backslidden,  and  might  about  as  well  go  straight  over 
to  Popery. 

We  have  lived  to  see,  in  almost  all  the  religious  assemblies,  these 
unwise  solicitudes  alleviated ;  and  there  is  a  growing  intelligence  in 
respect  to  the  use  of  music.  There  is  also  a  growing  disposition  to 
allow  religion  to  employ  any  instruments  by  which  it  can  accom- 
plish its  divine  purpose.  Eeligion  is  not  a  poor,  scrawny  prisoner, 
tied  up  in  a  church  and  forbidden  to  go  out  into  the  broad  sunlight, 
obliged  to  sing  watery  liynins  and  psalms,  and  not  allowed  to 
touch  noble  instruments.  Ileligion  is  God's  own  child,  and  walks  a 
queen  in  the  earth,  and  has  a  right  to  everything  by  which  men  can 
be  made  happier  while  they  are  being  made  better. 

The  singing  in  our  churches  fifty  years  ago  was  simply  doleful ; 
and  instruction  in  music  was  then  a  rare  accomplishment,  and 
was  for  the  children  of  the  rich,  if  for  any.  Musical  instru- 
ments were  few.  It  is  rare,  now,  to  find  a  household  in  com- 
fortable circumstances  without  a  musical  instrument.     It  was  rare 

»T    Sr-NDAT  MORMNG,  Jtrne  23,  1S72.    LE3S0X  :  Psalm  cm     aviixs  (Plymouth  Collection) 
Nos.  104,  »0i,  Ui2. 


288  lEE  BELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC. 

then  to  find  one  even  in  the  house  of  the  rich  man.  I  suspect  that 
my  father's  house  saw  tlie  first  piano  wliicli  was  introduced  into  the 
goodly  old  town  of  Litchfield.  It  was  a  wonder  and  a  marvel.  But 
our  children  are  bred  to  music  now  as  a  part  of  the  public  instruc- 
tion. A  great  impulse  has  been  given  to  church  music.  A  native 
musical  literature  has  been  created.  It  is  not  very  elevated,  it  must 
be  confessed ;  but  it  is  good  enough  for  seed.  It  is  the  beginning 
of  a  glorious  future.  Schools  are  full  of  music,  and  streets  and 
houses  resonant  with  it.  Choirs  and  choral  societies  in  the  country 
and  in  the  city  are  increasing  in  number  and  in  efficiency. 

We  owe  something,  I  think,  of  this  reviving  of  music  to  the 
humble  Methodists — to  what  were  called  "  wild  revivalists."  Those 
who  conducted  revivals  followed  the  impulses  of  men  closely,  they 
studied  human  nature ;  and  these  revivals  were  the  truest  schools 
of  preaching,  and  also  of  singing.  Although  we  Avere  accustomed, 
formerly,  to  speak  slightingly  of  Methodist  hymns  and  tunes,  and 
to  ridicule  revival  melodies,  yet  the  poorest  tune  or  hymn  that  ever 
was  sting  is  better  than  no  tune  and  no  hymn.  It  is  better  to  sing 
than  to  be  dumb,  however  poor  the  singing  may  be.  Any  tune 
or  hymn  which  excites  or  gives  expression  to  true  devout  feeling  is 
worthy  of  use ;  and  no  music  which  comes  to  us  from  any  quarter 
can  afford  to  scorn  those  simple  melodies  which  taught  our  fathers 
to  weep  and  give  thanks  in  prayer-meetings  and  revival  meetings. 
We  owe  much  to  the  habit  of  the  Methodist  Church,  which  intro- 
duced popular  singing  throughout  our  land,  and  first  and  chiefly 
through  the  West,  and  little  by  little  everywhere. 

We  ought  to  remember,  also,  such  venerable  names  as  Mason  and 
Hastings,  who  were  early  the  missionaries  of  this  good  cause.  They 
introduced,  and  they  carefully  nourished,  the  early  developments 
of  music.  We  owe  most,  however,  for  the  condition  which  we  are 
in  with  regard  to  music,  at  the  present  day,  to  foreign  immigrants — 
above  all,  to  the  Germans,  who,  if  they  have  brought  here  some 
rationalism,  and  much  more  lager  beer,  have  also  brought  a  great 
musical  enthusiasm  with  them — and  I  regard  that  as  more  than  an 
offset  for  both  of  the  others.  To  them  Ave  owe  a  debt  which  we 
sliall  not  soon  pay.  Nor  have  Ave  yet  received  at  their  hands  half  of 
that  Avhich  they  are  prepared  to  give  to  our  people  in  these  later 
stages  and  in  this  fuller  dcA^elopment  of  scientific  music.  We  must, 
I  think,  admit  that  Ave  are  pupils  of  our  ancestral  blood.  The  old 
Saxon  blood  is  teaching  us  to  sing  as  it  has  taught  us  many  other 
things  Avhich  are  Avell  Avorth  knowing. 

I  do  not  propose  to  consider  music  at  large  :  I  propose  simply  to 
consider  some  of  its  religious  uses. 


TUE  RELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC.  28'9 

The  Jews,  more  than  any  people,  employed  music  for  sacred  pur- 
poses. It  was  not  unknown  to  tlie  collateral  people  of  the  oriental 
nations  which  were  cotemporaneous  with  the  Jews ;  but  it  was  not 
emi)loyed  among  them  to  any  such  degree  as  it  Avas  among  the  Jews. 
The  Jews  were  preeminently  a  choral  people ;  and  as  the  early 
church  was  almost  wholly  Jewish — that  is,  as  the  dominating  char- 
acteristic was  Jewish — the  habit  of  song,  as  well  as  many  other 
habits,  passed  over  into  the  early  church,  and  it  was  a  singing 
church.  By  song  it  consoled  itself  in  sorrows;  it  instructed 
itself;  it  ministered  to  its  own  patience  ;  it  created  joy  where  other- 
wise there  could  have  been  none.  All  the  way  down  through  the 
early  centuries  there  were  exhortations  to  song  like  that  of  the 
apostle  in  our  text,  where  he  is  teaching  men  how  to  maintain  their 
faith  under  adverse  circumstances. 

"  Speaking  to  yourselves  in  psalms  and  hjrmns  and  spiritual  songs,  singing 
and  makiug  melody  in  your  heart  to  the  Lord." 

In  the  early  church  the  hymn  was  the  creed.  It  was  at  a 
later  day,  when  music  began  to  wane,  that  creeds  took  on  philo- 
sophical forms,  and  men  exchanged  psalmody  for  the  cate- 
chism. In  the  Catholic  Church  music  was  made  to  occupy  an 
eminent  position ;  but  like  everything  else  in  that  church  it  was 
made  hierarchic.  In  the  Eoman  Chiirch  there  was  almost  no  dem- 
ocratic element  of  administration.  The  Methodist  Church  is  a  re- 
markable combination  of  hierarchic  government  united  to  democratic 
worship.  In  the  government  of  the  church  among  our  Methodist 
brethren,  for  the  most  part,  the  clergy  act ;  but  in  the  conduct  of 
public  worship  the  whole  people  have  liberty  of  tongue — and  they 
use  it.  But  in  the  old  Roman  Church  the  whole  worship,  as  well  as 
the  whole  government,  Avas  in  the  hands  of  the  hierarchy.  The  music 
was  therefore  official,  and  was  the  music  of  the  church,  and  not  the 
music  of  the  community,  nor  of  the  common  people.  One  of  the  most 
important  elements  of  the  Reformation  in  Germany  Avas  not  merely 
the  liberty  of  thinking,  but  the  liberty  of  singing.  As  the  Roman 
Church  had  sung  for  the  people,  just  as  it  had  prayed  for  them  and 
preached  to  them,  they  being  recipients,  and  the  hierarchic  body 
being  the  only  responsible  men  Avho  Avere  at  liberty  to  confer  gifts 
upon  the  people,  so  reaction  against  this  hierarchic  administrative 
body  took  on  the  form,  earlier  than  almost  any  other,  of  singing. 
The  right  of  the  people  to  sing  may  not  have  been  techni- 
cally disputed;  but  the  feeling  of  right  and  the  impulse  to  sing 
arose,  I  think,  almost  Avholly,  from  the  reactionary  spirit.  It  Avas 
so  in  Germany.  It  Avas  so  in  France.  Indeed  at  one  period  it 
would  seem  as  though  the  French  Avere  likely  to  outstrip  the  Ger- 


290  TEE  BELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC. 

mans  in  the  reformation.  At  Court,  during  certain  periods,  the 
psalms  of  David  might  be  lieard  sung  by  the  courtiers ;  and  peni- 
tential psalms  were  sung  to  waltzes  and  other  secular  music.  For  a 
long  time  this  continued;  and  if  there  had  arisen  a  genius  who 
could  have  been  to  that  nation  what  Watts  and  Wesley  and  Dodd- 
ridge have  been  as  hymn-Avriters  to  the  English  people;  it  is  probable 
that  the  Eeformation  would  have  gone  on  in  France  as  it  went  on  in 
England.  Not  insignificant  authorities  have  declared  that  the  suc- 
cess of  the  German  Eeformation  depended  more  upon  the  fact  that 
the  great  mass  of  the  common  people  were  taught  to  sing,  and  that 
there  was  furnished  them  an  immense  natural  literature  of  hymns, 
than  upon  any  other  thing.  This,  perhaps,  is  an  over-estimation  of 
the  matter;  but  without  a  doubt  that  element  had  a  large  influ- 
ence in  bringing  the  common  people  up  and  giving  them  a  power 
by  which  they  were  sustained  and  defended  against  hierarchic  op- 
pression. 

The  meaning  of  religious  music  ought  to  be  considered.  It  is 
that  which  is  designed  to  produce,  not  pleasure,  nor  admiration,  nor 
even  education  in  the  matter  of  refinement.  Eeligious  music,  as 
distinguished  from  other  music,  is  that  which  shall  excite  or  express 
some  inflection  of  the  highest  feelings.  Music  may  be  employed  to 
express  thoughts.  It  may  even  be  employed  to  recite  history.  Creeds 
themselves  may  be  chanted — the  most  abstract  of  all  teaching.  His- 
torical nai'ratives  may  be  chanted.  But  in  our  use  ordinary  music 
is  designed  either  to  promote  or  to  express  what  may  be  called  the 
moral  and  spiritual  feeVmgs. 

There  is  a  great  difierence  in  music  itself;  and  yet  almost  any 
music  can  be  so  used  as  to  express  religious  feeling.  There  are  many 
tunes  that  we  sing,  which  to  the  ear  of  a  German  carry  associations 
most  irreligious,  but  which  to  us  are  religious  enough,  because 
we  have  not  heard  them  sung  in  drinking  saloons  or  other  low 
places.  We  use  for  sacred  purposes  alone  tunes  that  in  other 
lands  are  not  used  exclusively  for  purposes  tliat  seem  reverent.  And 
we  ought  not  needlessly  to  introduce  into  our  religious  music  tuues 
which  are  worldly.  Though  one  may  properly  take  portions  of  or- 
atorios and  symphonies  and  make  of  them  tunes  for  hymns  and  sa- 
cred songs,  yet  there  is  mucli  in  all  secular  music  Avliicli  had  better 
be  left  out  from  religious  music.  There  is  much  music  which  is  not 
redeemed  from  associations  of  gayety,  not  to  say  vanity,  and  which 
does  not  seem  likely  to  be  redeemed,  and  which  is  not  needful,  be- 
cause there  is  already  in  existence,  and  there  is  multiplying  in  every 
decade  of  years,  music  which  is  full  of  the  expression  of  a  true  re- 
ligious feeling. 


TEE  BELIGI01J8  USES  OF  31 U SIC.  291 

When,  therefore,  Ave  hear  introduced  needlessly  into  religious 
service  the  music  of  the  world,  we  have  a  right  to  be  offended.  Wo 
have  a  right  to  say,  "We  did  not  come  to  church  for  the  sake  of 
having  our  memories  of  the  theater  or  of  the  opera  revived.  We 
did  not  come  to  have  the  imagination  of  the  dance  awakened  in  our 
minds."  When  such  music  is  needed,  we  should  go  where  it  may 
properly  be  found,  in  the  household.  We  have  a  right  in  the 
church  to  ask  for  such  music  as  shall  promote  though tfulness,  ten- 
derness, devoutness,  cheerfulness,  aspiration,  joy  in  praise,  and 
hope. 

Not  only  the  cliaracter  of  the  music,  but  also  the  method  of  ren- 
dering it,  is  concerned  in  making  it  devout  or  religious.  Organ- 
music  is  the  noblest  music,  I  think,  on  earth.  The  organ  is  the 
noblest  instrument  that  has  been  created;  and  like  all  things 
which  were  meant  for  time,  it  has  required  centuries  to  con- 
struct it.  It  has  grown  (nor  is  it  yet  fully  grown)  in  majesty, 
in  scope,  in  power,  in  eminent  sobriety,  and  yet,  in  accompany- 
ing vivacity  and  brilliance.  It  is,  above  all  other  instruments, 
adapted  to  the  uses  of  religion.  The  church  is  fortunate  in  having, 
peculiar  to  itself,  the  noblest  of  instruments,  which  may  be  said  to 
be  the  combination  of  all  other  insti'uments  that  have  ever  been 
created.  Still,  the  organ  itself  may  become  an  idol,  or  it  may  lead 
to  idolatry.  It  may  stand  in  the  house  of  God  a  mere  echo  of  the 
Avorld  outside.  Instead  of  leading  us  through  dreamy  meditations, 
or  through  the  more  profound  emotions,  toward  veneration;  in- 
stead of  lifting  us  up  from  the  earth,  and  bearing  us  though  mys- 
terious distances  into  the  very  presence  of  God,  how  often  is  it 
made  the  basest  slave  to  titillate  the  ear,  and  carry  us  back  again 
out  of  the  clouds,  or  down  from  the  top  of  the  mountain  to  the 
bottom,  where  the  people  are,  and  where  demons  abuse  the  people  ! 
In  the  house  of  God  we  have  a  right  to  demand  that  the  organ 
shall  serve — not  taste,  but  religion. 

Nor  shall  I  be  withheld  from  saying  that  for  the  twenty-five 
years  during  which  I  have  been  the  pastor,  and  the  only  pastor  that 
this  church  has  ever  had,  I  have  counted  it  to  be  one  of  the  most 
fortunate  things  in  attempting  to  indoctrinate  this  people,  and  to 
bring  them  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord  mu- 
sically, that  we  have  had  the  service  of  the  organ  administered  by 
one*  who,  to  my  knowledge,  has  never  once,  in  any  single  instance, 
deviated,  for  the  sake  of  pleasing  the  taste  of  men,  from  the  strictest 
expression  of  sobriety,  of  depth,  of  power,  of  joy,  of  liope,  of  reli- 

*  Mr.  John  Zundel. 


292  THE  BELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC. 

gious  feeling.  And  tliongh  this  organ  lias  sometimes  gone 
after  worldly  joys,  it  has  never  done  so  nnder  the  hands  of  him  who 
sits  at  it  now.  It  has  been  consecrated  to  the  service  of  religious 
sentiment. 

It  is  not  the  character  of  the  music  presented  which  always  de- 
termines its  religiousness.  The  nature  and  object  of  instrumental 
performance  and  singing  in  the  house  of  God  is  the  excitement  or 
expression  of  religious  feeling.  That  alone  should  limit  and  deter- 
mine the  character  of  the  music  which  is  employed.  There  is 
much  music  which  is  good  and  proper,  but  not  expedient  to 
introduce  into  the  liousa  of  God.  There  is  much  good  music  which 
can  only  be  rendered  to  the  taste.  Much  music  is  so  mingled  with 
what  may  be  called  musical  gymnastics,  that  it  inevitably  will 
excite  curiosity  and  admiration,  rather  than  thoughtfulness  and 
emotion. 

I  should  shock  even  the  least  venerating  in  my  presence  if, 
standing  here,  I  should  employ  my  prayers,  the  devotions  of  the 
church,  as  an  elocutionary  exhibition.  I  should  do  violence  to  your 
feelings  if,  addressing  God,  I  were  to  begin  with  the  scale  of  vowel 
sounds  and  explode  them  all  the  way  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest, 
in  the  midst  of  my  prayer.  You  would  be  shocked  if  in  the  most 
devout  passages  of  my  prayer  I  should  go  through  these  sounds  on 
the  rising  scale  and  on  the  descending  scale,  observing  the  various 
inflections  and  reflections,  giving  all  the  tones — the  sweetest  ones 
and  the  harshest  ones.  You  could  not  help  being  shocked  if  I 
should  make  an  elocutionary  drill  of  prayer,  using  the  name  of  God 
as  a  pivot  on  which  to  trill  or  explode  the  sounds.  Nobody  could 
tolerate  such  an  outrage  of  propriety  as  this  would  be. 

But  why  is  that  any  worse  than  to  do  the  same  thing  in 
singing,  with  our  hymns,  most  of  which  are  prayers  ?  Why  is 
that  any  worse  than  in  singing,  to  see  hov/  rapidly  one  can  run  up 
or  down,  or  to  see  hoAv  high  or  low  in  the  scale  one  can  go  ? 
Why  is  it  any  worse  than  for  one  to  show  how  exquisitely  and 
artistically  he  can  utter  the  highest  notes.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  the  gymnastics  of  music  that  is  proper  in  some  places, 
which  would  not  be  proper  in  a  church;  as  there  is  a  great  deal 
in  calisthenics  that  would  be  proper  in  a  hall  devoted  to  physical 
training,  which  would  not  be  proper  here  on  this  platform. 
That  place  has  one  object,  while  this  place  has  another.  And  I 
affirm  that  any  use  of  music,  in  regard  to  sacred  things,  which 
makes  it  merely  a  physical  accomj)lishraent,  and  which  addresses  it 
to  wonder  and  curiosity  and  admiration,  is  a  desecration  of  the 
Sabbath,  of  the  sanctuary,  and  of  sacred  music  itself.    As  an  in- 


THE  BELIGIOUS  USES'OF  MUSIO.  293 

variable  rule,  on  all  occasions  of  purely  religious  service,  music  is 
to  accomplish  some  religious  end.  And  no  matter  how  consum- 
mate it  is,  no  matter  how  exquisite  it  is  in  taste,  if  it  fails  to 
promote  religious  feeling,  it  fails  to  meet  the  end  for  which  it  was 
instituted. 

No  matter  how  finely  sermons  may  be  written,  no  matter 
how  exquisite  they  may  be  as  regards  choice  of  language,  no 
matter  how  beautiful  and  apt  "may  be  their  illustrations,  if  they 
be  sermons  that  buzz  in  the  ear,  and  tickle  the  fancy,  and  go  no 
further,  they  are  wasted,  and  they  are  out  of  place  in  the  house  of 
God.  Preaching  in  the  house  of  God  is  to  seek  some  religious  end. 
That  religious  end  may  be  large ;  it  may  take  in  the  whole  range  of 
faculties ;  but  it  must  be  an  end  that  leads  to  devotion. 

Any  choir  that  ceases  to  excite  devotion  has  overstepped  the 
limits  of  propriety.  The  distinction  between  worldly  and  sacred 
music  is  marked  and  clear.  One  is  designed  to  excite  pleasure  through 
a  ministration  of  taste  :  the  other  is  designed  to  incite  or  express  de- 
votion through  a  ministration  of  religious  feeling.  Church  music  be- 
longs to  the  sphere  of  religion.  The  highest  music  for  religious 
purposes  is  not  vocal  and  instrumental  music  pure  and  simple,  but 
music  which  is  wedded  to  jisalms  or  hymns.  When  a  religious 
thought  or  sentiment  is  rendered  by  music,  you  then  have  that 
which  in  a  religious  point  of  view  is  ftir  higher  than  either  the 
music  alone  or  the  thought  or  sentiment  alone.  To  read  a  hymn, 
or  to  sing  a  tune,  is  not  so  effective  as  to  unite  the  two  and  sing 
the  hymn. 

Let  us  consider  some  of  the  advantages  in  a  religions  education 
which  grow  out  of  the  use  of  music  in  connection  with  hymns  and 
psalms. 

In  the  first  place,  I  hold  that  there  is  more  sound  instruc- 
tion to  be  given  to  a  congregation  by  this  method  than  by 
almost  any  other.  Indeed,  I  doubt,  if  you  were  to  analyze  your 
religious  emotions,  whether  you  would  not  trace  them  back  to 
hymns  more  than  to  the  Bible  itself.  If  any  one  will  con- 
sider the  source  of  his  thoughts  of  heaven,  I  think  he  will  land  in 
Dr.  Watts,  rather  than  in  the  Eevelator,  Saint  John.  I  think 
that  the  hymns  of  Dr.  Watts,  and  Charles  Wesley's  hymns,  in 
which  they  describe  heaven,  its  occupations,  its  glowing  joys,  and 
its  zeal  and  rapture,  have  more  to  do  Avith  forming  men's  ideas  of 
the  promised  land  than  any  other  literature,  not  excepting  the 
Bible  ;  just  as  John  Milton  has  given  us  more  theology  of  one 
sort  than  can  be  found  in  the  Bible. 

The  hymn-book  is  the  system  of  theology  which  has  been  most 


294  TEE  EELIGI0U8  USES  OF  MUSIC. 

in  vogue  among  the  common  people.  If  you  compare,  point  by 
point,  the  teaching  of  hymns  or  creeds  or  catechisms,  I  think  yon 
will  join  with  me  in  saying  that  it  is  a  pity  that  there  has  not  been 
more  singing.  I  do  not  say  but  that  the  catechisms  may  have  a 
place ;  but  the  instruction  which  is  given  by  hymns  is  more  like 
the  instruction  which  is  given  by  the  Word  of  God  than  is  the 
catechism.  The  Word  of  God  seldom  analyzes;  it  seldom  runs 
into  abstractions  ;  it  seldom  presents  truth  in  a  philosophic  view  ; 
it  almost  invariably  appeals  through  the  imagination  to  the  feelings, 
and  through  the  feelings  to  the  reason.  The  form  of  presenting 
truth  by  hymns  is  the  highest  form  of  presenting  it — truth  as  it  is 
in  the  heart,  and  not  truth  as  it  is  in  the  head. 

In  this  way  the  truth  is  made  easy  to  all  comprehensions.  We 
follow  nature.  We  find  that  children  learn  more  readily  by  fables 
and  stories  rather  than  by  reasoning.  We  find  that  children  are 
seldom  metaphysicians.  More  often  they  are  poets.  Children 
learn  more  by  pictures  which  are  presented  to  their  minds  than  by 
exact  statements  of  ideas.  And  the  Word  of  God  is  seldom  an  un- 
interesting book  to  children  if  it  is  properly  laid  before  them. 

;N"o  preaching  was  ever  so  profitable  to  me,  over  whose  head 
went  thundering  sermon  SjW^''  ''":  were  magnificent,  no  doubt,  which 
were  impetuous,  but  lift*v3  .igb  above  my  capacity  to  understand, 
as  were  portions  of  the  Bibb  vvhicli  were  read  to  me  in  a  manner 
which  rendered  them  attractive  to  me.  At  church  I  looked  up  and 
saw  that  there  were  great  goings  on  in  my  fixther's  pulpit,  when  I 
was  six  ar  J  seven  and  eight  years  old ;  but  what  it  Avas  all  about  I 
did  not  auow.  When,  hovv-ever,  my  dear  old  aunt  read  to  me  the 
ten  plagues,  the  history  of  Joseph,  and  Ruth's  inimitable  history, 
or  when  she  read  to  me  from  the  Gospel  scenes  in  the  life  of 
Christ,  nothing  could  have  been  plainer  to  me  than  these  scenes  and 
these  histories.  The  Bible,  thus  adminstered  to  me,  was  my  sanc- 
tuary. 

So,  that  instruction  which  is  derived  from  psalms  and  hymns  ig 
according  to  the  Bible  method,  because  it  addresses  itself  through 
the  imagination  to  the  emotions,  and  through  the  emotions  to  the 
understanding.  And  it  is  better  fitted  for  the  inculcation  of  popu- 
lar theology  than  sermons  themselves. 

It  is  on  this  account  that  I  think  hymns  and  psalms  will  be 
among  the  great  influences  which  will  bring  together  the  church 
of  the  future,  and  make  substantial  harmony  between  those  who 
never  could  be  reconciled  by  their  confessions  and  by  their  cate- 
chism. It  is  remarkable  to  see  how  men  Avill  quarrel  over  a  dogma, 
and    then    sit    down    and   rejoice  over  a  hymn    which    expresses 


TEB  EELIGI0UI6  USES  OF  MUSIC,  295 

precisely  the  same  sentiments  about  which  they  have  differed.  A 
man  Avill  dispute  with  you  in  regard  to  the  absohite  divinity  of 
Jesus  Christ,  but  he  will  sing  "  Corouation"  with  you  because  he 
carries  out  his  own  idea  as  he  goes  along.  In  general  feeliug  you 
are  united,  though  in  special  dogmatic  statement  you  disagree. 

There  have  been  many  vehement  controversies  between  the  Cal- 
yinists  and  the  Arminians.  There  have  been  a  great  many  dis- 
putes as  to  whether  men  can  fall  from  grace  or  not  after  they  have 
once  been  effectually  called  and  converted.  They  all  do  sin,  we 
know.  The  Arminians  say  that  they  fall,  and  the  Calvinists 
say  that  they  do  not.  It  is  a  difference  of  statement  in  regard  to  a 
fact  which  seems  to  me  to  be  without  any  doubt.  But  whatever 
may  be  the  disputes  concerning  this  recondite  matter,  on  the  one 
hand  the  Methodists  will  sing  Calvinistic  songs  with  us,  and  on  the 
other  hand  we  will  sing  Arminian  hymns  with  them.  Without 
hesitation  we  sing  with  each  other  hymns,  guite  unaware  of  what 
the  doctrines  are  which  are  laid  up  in  them.  We  sing  from  the 
same  hymn-book  things  about  which  we  should  widely  differ  if  we 
were  discussing  systems  of  theology.  '•'  The  theology  of  the ' 
feelings,"'  as  it  has  been  aptly  termed,  the  theology  of  the  heart, 
brings  men  together.  You  can  blend  men  by  common  experiences 
which  touch  common  feelings;  but  you  cannot  unite  men  by  philo- 
sophical statements  or  historical  facts.  One  of  the  bonds  of  union 
to-day  is  the  hymn-book  and  tune-.book  of  the  congregation,  which 
contains  dogmas  representing  every  conceivable  variation  of  belief, 
which  brings  men  together,  harmonizing  them  and  cementing  them, 
and  inspiring  in  them  the  feeling  that  they  are  brethren,  and  that 
alike  they  are  children  of  the  Father  God. 

So  too,  it  seems  to  me,  that  hymns  and  psalms  render  a  valuable 
service,  in  that  they  remove  those  special  hindrances  and  difficulties 
which  obstruct  the  entrance  of  the  truth  into  men's  hearts.  There 
is  much  truth  which  is  clearly  presented,  but  which,  being  pre- 
sented in  a  doctrinal  form,  or  argumentatively,  excite  in  the  hearer 
a  disposition  to  argue  and  dispute. 

There  stands  a  controversial  dog  at  almost  every  turn  ;  and 
wiicn  you  approach  men  on  the  subject  of  theologj^,  this  watch-dog 
shows  his  teeth.  Men  call  it  "  conscience";  but  a  dog  is  a  dog. 
Where  a  man  is  combative,  he  denies  your  propositions,  and  fights 
them.  And  much  that  is  true  never  finds  an  entrance  into 
men's  minds  because  of  the  malign  feelings  wliich  arc  in  them. 
But  tliere  is  that  in  music  which  has  the  power  of  putting  these 
malign  elements  to  sleep.  We  arc  told,  you  know,  in  the  fable, 
that  old  Cerberus  went  to  sleep  charmed  by  music.     Uowever  that 


296  THE  BELIGI0U8  USES  OF  MUSIC, 

may  be,  sweet  hymns  do  allay  malign  feelings ;  and  men  Avho  are 
rude  and  combative  may  be  harmonized  under  their  influence. 

I  remember  a  remarkable  instance  which  occurred  in  my  father's 
lecture-room  during  one  of  those  sweet  scenes  which  preceded  the 
separation  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  into  the  Old  and  New 
Schools.  At  that  time  controversy  ran  high,  and  there  were  fire 
and  zeal  and  wrath  minglecl  with  discussion ;  and  whoever  sat  in 
the  chair,  the  devil  presided.  On  the  occasion  to  which  I  refer,  an 
old  Scotchman,  six  feet  high,  much  bent  with  age,  with  blue  eyes, 
large  features,  very  pale  and  white  all  over  his  face,  and  bald- 
headed,  walked  up  and  down  the  back  part  of  the  room ;  and  as 
the  dispute  grew  furious,  he  (and  only  he  could  have  done  it)  would 
stop  and  call  out,  "  Mr.  Maudera-a-tor,  let  us  sing  '  Salva-a-tion  ' ;" 
and  some  one  would  strike  up  and  sing  the  tune,  and  the  men  who 
were  in  angry  debate  were  cut  short;  but  one  by  one  they 
joined  in,  and  before  they  had  sung  the  hymn  through  they 
were  all  calm  and  quiet.  When  they  resumed  the  controversy 
it  was  on  a  much  lower  key.  So  this  good  old  man  Avalkcd  up 
and  down,  and  threw  a  hymn  into  the  quarrel  every  few  moments, 
and  kept  the  religious  antagonists  from  absolute  explosion  and 
fighting.  It  is  the  nature  of  hymns  to  quell  irascible  feeling.  I  do 
not  think  that  a  man  who  was  mad  could  sing  six  verses  through 
without  regaining  his  temper  before  he  got  to  the  end.  You  can- 
not have  antagonistic  feelings  togetlier.  If  a  child  is  angry,  the 
nurse  tries  to  make  him  laugh ;  *and  he  won't,,  he  strives  against  it, 
because  when  the  laugh  comes,  away  goes  the  temper.  Our  feelings 
are  set  like  a  board  on  a  pivot;  and  if  this  end  is  temper  and  that 
end  is  good-humor,  when  the  temper  goes  up  the  good-humor  goes 
down,  or  v/hen  the  good-humor  goes  up  the  temper  goes  down. 
So  it  is  in  respect  to  all  the  feelings ;  they  exist  in  opposite 
pairs;  and  the  way  to  put  down  a  bad  feeling  is  to  find  out  the 
feeling  which  is  opposite  to  it,  and  stimulate  that.  This  is  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  law  of  the  mind.  And  the  singing  of  sweet 
hymns  and  tunes  will  go  further  to  cast  the  devil  out  of  men's 
minds  than  any  other  exorcism  which  I  know  of. 

The  use  of  hymns,  in  singing,  also,  may  be  spoken  of  as 
preeminently  beneficial  to  individuals  in  times  of  sorrow  and 
distress.  I  know  of  nothing  that,  on  the  whole,  is^  more  soothing 
to  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  one  who  is  in  trouble,  than  the 
thinking  of  a  song,  if  he  cannot  sing  it ;  but  if  he  can  sing,  it  is  all 
the  better.  The  sweet  sounds  Avhich  men  utter,  seem  to  rise,  and 
then  descend  again  in  dew  and  rain  from  the  hand  of  God  upon 
them,  to  cool  and  quiet  them.     I  am  sorry  for  auy  one  who  cannot 


TEE  BELIGI0U8  USES  OF  MUSIO.  297 

sing.  I  am  sorry  for  an3'thing  in  nature  which  cannot  make  music. 
I  know  not  that  the  toad  ever  sings.  Beetles  do  not  sing.  Worms 
do  not  make  any  musical  noise.  When  we  come  up  to  the  cricket 
and  the  whole  cicada  tribe,  one  sings  in  monotone,  and  another 
breaks  into  syllabic  music — the  katy-did,  for  instance — and  their 
songs  are  limited  in  scope  and  low  in  quality.  But  when  you  rise 
above  them  to  the  region  of  the  birds,  music  takes  on  more  beau- 
tiful forms.  And  I  know  not  what  the  summer  would  be  worth 
without  its  birds.  From  their  first  coming  in  the  spring  I  bless 
God,  and  find  it  easier  to  be  devout  and  to  aspire.  After  mid- 
August,  when  the  nest  has  served  its  purpose,  and  the  birds  have 
prepared  themselves  for  their  southern  flight,  I  cannot  repress 
melancholy  aud  sadness  that  there  is  no  music  in  the  trees  or  in 
the  forest.  If  they  do  not  sing  for  themselves,  I  think  they  might 
afford  to  sing  for  me. 

If  you  rise  still  higher,  out  of  the  tribe  of  uninstructed  animals 
into  the  human  race,  you  find  superior  musical  gifts  and  endow- 
ments. There  the  sense  of  music  takes  possession  of  the  under- 
standing, and  of  the  whole  realm  of  taste,  and  of  the  heart  itself. 
And  the  tongue  by  which  men  evolve  the  highest  thoughts  and 
feelings,  is  the  tongue  of  music. 

Men  often  ask,  "How  shall  I  restrain  wandering  thoughts  in 

prayer?     How  shall  I  pray?"    Do  you  suppose  that  praying  means 

kneeling  down  ?     Do  you  supjjose  that  praying  means  uttering  just 

so  many  sentences  before  God  ?     Do  you  not  suppose,  when  you 

say, 

"  Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul, 
Let  me  to  thy  bosom  fly," 

that  that  is  prayer?  If  you  cannot  kneel  down  and  pray, 
did  you  ever  try  to  stand  up  and  pray,  singing?  Two-thirds 
of  all  our  hymns  are  prayers;  and  if  you  find  it  difficult  to 
pray,  why  do  you  not  sing?  There  are  many  men  who  cannot 
lead  the  devotions,  of  their  household;  but  can  you  not  sing? 
Cannot  your  wife  sing?  Cannot  your  children  sing?  I  care 
not  whether  you  can  do  it  according  to  the  canons  of  the  most 
refined  taste;  can  you  do  it  so  that  it  shall  be  tolerable?  If  you 
cannot  lead  in  prayer,  take  two  or  three  devout,  prayer-inspiring 
hymns,  and  sing  them.  Then  you  will  have  had  devotion  more 
profitable  than  if  you  had  repeated  petitions  which  you  inherited 
from  your  father,  or  copied  from  your  deacon  or  elder  of  the 
church. 

As  a  preparation,  then,  for  religious  meetings,  sing.  As  a 
preparation  for  the  sanctuary  and  its  privileges,  sing.    As  a  prep- 


298  TEE  BELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC. 

aration  for  self-examiuation,  or  as  a  means  of  pushing  in  the  worldly 
stops,  and  drawing  out  the  religious  stops  of  the  organ,  sing.  And 
let  the  children  sing.  Joining  in  the  singing  of  hymns  is  eminently 
profitable. 

The  singing  of  hymns  also  carries  with  it  great  relief  to  care. 
There  is  many  a  woman,  I  think,  whose  life,  passed  in  the  house- 
hold, is  filled  with  fears  and  anxieties,  and  oftentimes  with  troubles 
which  her  pride  never  sufiers  her  to  express  except  toward  God.  I 
believe  that  there  is  many  and  many  a  woman  who  endures  unin- 
terrupted trials,  who  is  shut  u^d  to  herself,  and  yet  is  growing  in 
richness  and  strength  and  inward  beauty,  being  sustained  through 
all  her  dreary  pilgrimage  by  the  power  of  Christian  hymns.  She 
sings,  and  the  h}'mns  that  she  sings  are  such  as  reacli  over  almost 
every  conceivable  condition  of  the  mind  or  heart.  The  very  wine 
of  experience  has  been  pressed  out,  and  hymns  have  been  found  to 
contain  it.  So  the  griefs  which  come  and  go  in  a  day  can  be  easily 
soothed ;  and  the  sorrow^  and  cares  which  will  not  go  can  be  made 
tolerable,  by  the  sweet  aid  of  song.  Joys  can  be  excited  out  of  sad- 
ness. Patience  can  be  inspired  out  of  discouragement.  The  sweet- 
est and  richest  experiences  can  be  attained  through  the  voice  of 
music.  Men  can  oftentimes  find  in  song,  joys  which  the  sanctuary 
itself  fails  to  give  them. 

Such  being  the  power  of  music,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  ought  to 
occupy  .a  much  more  important  place  in  the  realm  of  instruction. 
There  are  those  who  ask,  "  What  shall  make  the  Sabbath-day  more 
acceptable?  What  shall  save  the  Sabbath-day?"  If  you  ever  save 
the  Sabbath-day  you  must  make  it  attractive.  You  will  never  drive 
this  great  American  people  into  Sunday  as  into  a  net.  You  will 
never  drive  men  into  the  Sabbath-day  as  into  a  prison-house.  If  it 
opens  its  cavernous  doors,  and  invites  men  only  to  a  condition  of 
restraint  and'  formal  obedience,  they  will  not  enter  it.  And  every 
American  church  that  would  redeem  the  Sabbath-day  must  do  it 
not  by  holding  up  texts  badly  construed  or  misreasoued  upon.  You 
must  make  the  Sabbath-day  the  sweetest  day  of  the  week.  Then  no 
argument  will  be  needed  to  induce  men  to  accept  it.  If  you  are  not 
willing  to  do  that,  then  you  should  shut  your  mouth  evermore  on 
the  subject  of  the  desecration  of  the  Sabbath.  In  every  household 
it  is  the  duty  of  father  and  mother  to  extort  from  their  children,  in 
after  years,  the  testimony,  that  of  all  the  days  of  the  week  there 
was  none  that  they  liked  so  well  as  Sunday.  Of  all  the  days  of  the 
week  there  was  none  that  I  liked  so  little  as  Sunday,  when  I  was  a 
boy.  Of  all  the  days  of  the  week  now,  there  is  none  on  which  I 
work  so   much  as  on  Sunday.     And  if  to  work  on  Sunday  is  to 


THE  BELIGI0V8  USES  OF  MUSIC.  299 

break  the  Sabbath,  then  I  am  one  of  the  greatest  of  Sabbath  break- 
ers, for  I  work  about  all  day,  and  sometimes  all  night.  But,  after 
all,  it  is  the  joy-day  of  the  whole  week  to  me.  And  if  you  would 
redeem  the  Sabbath,  make  it  more  cheerful  in  the  household.  Give 
it  the  exhilaration  of  song.  Give  it  the  social  element  which  goes 
with  psalms  and  hymns.  If  you  do  not  make  the  sanctuary  on  the 
Sabbath-day  a  place  of  joy  and  not  gloom,  you  cannot  express  the 
spirit  of  such  a  people  as  ours  :  but  if  you  inspire  the  sanctuary  with 
a  noble  life  of  manhood,  and  with  high  conceptions  that  touch  the 
whole  range-  of  faculties;  if  the  reason,  if  the  taste,  if  the  moral 
faculties,  if  the  deeper  springs  of  the  soul,  are  touched,  and  the  mys- 
teries of  the  world  to  come  are  sounded  out,  and  men  are  thor- 
oughly roused,  and  more  thoroughly  held,  then  no  house  Avill  be 
la3'ge  enough  for  the  congregation  that  will  be  eager  to  participate 
in  the  services  of  religion.  For  under  such  circumstances  religion 
has  the  power  to  make  men's  sorrows  lighter,  their  joys  brighter, 
and  their  hopes  more  rapturous. 

The  grand  trouble  with  our  Sundays  is,  that  they  are  stuffed. 
They  are  not  filled  with  living  food.  They  are  like  dead  fowls, 
all  of  them  dead  and  stuffed.  But  men  run  after  life.  They 
long  for  vitality.  Eestriction  is  the  accident  of  religion,  and 
not  its  nature.  Development  is  its  characteristic.  And  real  noble 
music  is  one  of  the  instrumentalities  by  which  we  may  redeem  the 
sanctuary  and  the  Sabbath,  very  largely  from  danger  of  neglect. 

It  is  a  matter  of  inquiry  whether  we  are  going  to  get  the  Ger- 
mans to  respect  our  American  Sabbath.  I  do  not  want  them  to 
respect  our  American  Sabbath.  I  want  them  to  respect  the  Lord's 
Day.  But  you  cannot  get  them  to  respect  the  Lord's  Day  unless 
they  are  made  to  believe  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  the  Lord's 
Day.  HoAV  can  you  expect  them  to  worship  when  tliey  do  not  feel 
certain  that  there  is  a  God?  How  can  you  expect  men  wlio  are 
unbound,  loose  in  their  religion,  to  observe  your  Sabbath-day, 
R'hich  is  but  an  external  institution  ?  The  way  to  make  men  re- 
spect religion  is  to  lead  them  to  respect  manhood  in  themselves 
first.  It  is  to  wake  up  among  them  religious  impulses.  The  ser- 
vices of  our  Methodist  brethren  are  doing  a  better  work  among  the 
Germans  than  our  polished  services  are. 

Wlien  religion  is  made  attractive;  when  it  is  made,  by  singing- 
and  other  instrumentalities,  to  appeal  to  men's  best  feelings;  when 
it  makes  the  sanctuary  a  place  where  men  are  so  happy  that  they 
would  ratlier  part  with  their  daily  bread  than  witli  the  bread  of  the 
Lord  which  they  obtain  there,  then  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in 
getting  men  to  observe  the  Sabbath-day.     Make  it  better  than  anv 


300  THE  BELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC. 

other  day,  and  then  men  will  observe  it  of  their  owu  accord.  But 
you  cannot  dry  it,  desiccate  it,  make  it  a  relic  of  the  past,  and 
then  get  men  to  bow  down  to  it  and  respect  it.  Make  it  a  loving 
day,  a  heart-jumping  day,  a  free-thinking  day,  a  day  of  inspiration 
and  of  hope,  and  then  you  will  redeem  it. 

Not  only  is  music  destined  to  have  much  to  do  with  individual 
experience,  with  the  comfort  and  joy  of  the  household,  and  with 
church  worship,  but  I  am  not  without  hope  that  it  will  have 
an  important  influence  in  promoting  international  peace.  And 
if  you  had  stood  with  me,  last  week,  in  that  great  tumultuous 
assembly  .in  Boston,  in  that  building  which  is  four  or  five 
hundred  feet  long,  and  three  cr  four  hundred  feet  wide, 
where  there  were  twenty  thousand  musical  performers  and  thirty 
or  forty  thousand  hearers,  I  think  you  would  have  had  the  same 
feeling.  For,  when  the  English  Grenadier  Band  marched  from  the 
midst  of  the  choir  and  came  down  into  their  places,  they  were 
greeted  with  thunders  of  enthusiasm.  And  as  they  began  to  play 
their  national  airs  and  ours  together,  an  almost  fanatical  wildness 
was  exhibited  by  the  people.  And  there  were  thrice  a  thousand  men 
who  would  fain  have  rushed  up  and  thrown  their  arms  about  them — 
and  I  know  of  one  man  who  would  have  led.  The  feeling  grew  in 
depth  and  sincerity.  It  was  my  pleasure  to  stand  near  the  colonel 
of  the  regiment,  who  came  out  with  this  band,  and  who  has  the 
general  conduct  of  affairs  with  them;  and  I  said  to  him,  '"'If  you 
have  any  influence  with  the  Cabinet  or  the  Government,  or  the  De- 
partment that  manages  such  things,  send  a  message  by  cable  to 
England,  and  tell  them  that  nothing  will  contribute  so  directly,  at 
present,  to  the  kindly  feeling  of  these  two  nations  toward  each  other, 
as  for  the  Queen  to  give  orders  that  this  band  shall  go  to  our  prin- 
cipal cities,  and  perform  some  of  their  principal  pieces.  We  will 
give  them  an  ovation.  The  land  will  blaze  with  enthusiasm  toward 
them.  Old  England  will  have  a  better  opinion  of  us,  and  we  shall 
have  kinder  feelings  toward  old  England.  We?  Other  folks,  for 
I  have  kind  enough  feelings  toward  her  already." 

And  this  was  not  peculiar  to  the  representatives  of  England;  for 
the  next  day,  when  the  German  band  came  out,  it  was  thought  to 
be  admirable  beyond  all  description.  Each  band,  each  day,  was 
•  thought  to  be  the  best.  There  was  nothing  to  compare  with  the 
Tuesday  band  of  England ;  there  was  nothing  like  the  Wednesday 
band  of  Germany ;  and  there  was  nothing  comparable  to  tlie  French 
band  of  Thursday.  Each,  as  it  came  out,  carried  tlie  whole  enor- 
mous crowd  of  thousands  and  thousands  of  the  people  out  of  all 
sense  of  propriety,  and,  even  in  decorous  old  New  England,  they 


THE  BELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC.  301 

stood  upon  the  seats,  and  the  men  swung  their  hats;  and  the  wo- 
men— who  had  nothing  else  to  swing  but  their  bonnets,  which  could 
not  be  seen — swung  their  handkerchiefs.  The  wildest  enthusiasm 
prevailed,  and  having  been  in  and  of  the  crowd,  I  am  witness  to 
this  glorious  international  comity,  this  genuine  interchange  of  cor- 
dial sympathy  and  kindness. 

Brethren,  these  great  international  exhibitions  of  mechanical 
art,  and  these  contests  between  nations  in  music,  are  a  great  deal 
better  than  international  combats.  We  have  seen  what  we  could 
do  with  the  rifle  and  with  artillery ;  now  let  us  see  what  we  can  do 
with  the  reaping-machine  and  the  trombone.  We  have  seen  what 
we  can  do  with  engines  of  destruction :  now  let  us  see  what  we 
can  do  by  competition  in  skill. 

One  thing  which  leads  me  to  sympathize  with  the  combined 
movements  of  workingmen,  though  I  do  not  approve  of  their  meas- 
ures, is  the  tendency  which  these  movements  have  in  the  direction 
of  i^eace.  We  shall  never  put  down  war  so  long  as  the  power  of  war 
is  in  the  top  of  society.  Not  until  working  people  have  their 
say,  can  you  destroy  the  cannon  and  the  rifle.  And  anything  which 
brings  the  common  people  into  relations  of  kindness  and  friendship 
will  have  the  effect  to  hasten  on  the  day  of  prediction,  when  there 
shall  be  no  more  war  and  destruction. 

Though  I  smiled  at  the  notion  of  a  grand  peace  jubilee  before  I 
went  to  Boston,  when  I  came  away  from  there,  I  said,  "  Whatever 
effect  may  be  produced  by  this  thing  here,  I  am  satisfied  that  it  is 
in  the  power  of  music  to  have  an  international  influence."  And  the 
time  will  come  when,  by  pictures,  by  music,  by  mechanic  arts,  and 
by  industrious  affiliations,  all  nations  shall  be  under  one  brother- 
hood, so  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  ambition  to  rend  them  asun- 
der, dr  lead  man  to  destroy  man. 

Let  us,  then,  pray  for  the  days  of  song.  Sing,  man;  sing, 
woman.  Or,  if  you  cannot  sing,  make  a  joyful  noise  to  the  Lord. 
Sing  in  your  house.  Sing  by  the  wayside.  Sing  upon  the  sea. 
Sing  in  the  wilderness.  Sing  always  and  everywhere.  Pray  by 
siiigiug.  Recite  truths  by  chanting  songs.  Sing  more  in  the 
sanctuary.  All  of  you  sing.  Sing  from  city  to  city,  from  state  to 
state,  and  from  nation  to  nation.  Let  your  songs  be  like  deep 
answering  to  deep,  until  that  day  shall  come  when  the  heaven  and 
the  earth  shall  join  together,  and  the  grand  and  final  chorus  shall 
roll  through  the  universe;  when  "the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are 
become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  his  Christ,  and  he  shall 
reign  forever  and  ever." 


302  THE  EELIGI0U8  USES  OF  MUSIC. 


.PEAYER  BEFORE  THE   SERMON". 

We  rejoice,  our  Father,  that  there  are  so  many  who  sing  thy  praise  eter- 
nally. We  rejoice  that  there  is  a  world  whose  language  is  music,  and  where 
joy  is  unceasing,  and  seeks  expression  in  song.  We  are  glad  to  believe  that 
thou  art  such  a  one  that  none  can  draw  near  to  thee  without  ecstatic  hap- 
piness ;  and  that  every  lip  must  needs  break  forth  in  its  gladness,  in  its  sense 
of  what  thou  art,  and  in  its  feeble  attempt  to  utter  those  things  which  shall 
be  praise  and  adoration.  How  few  there  are  in  life  who  excite  in  us  other 
than  compassion,  or  affection  in  low  degrees !  To  how  few  can  we  look  up ! 
We  are  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Thou  only  art  pure  and  perfect.  Thou  only 
canst  be  approached  by  praise  without  its  easily  running  into  flattery.  And 
we  rejoice  that  yet  one  day  we  shall  behold  thee,  and  be  filled  with  gladness 
at  thy  excellence;  yea,  and  be  drawn,  by  thine  excellence  and  goodness, 
toward  thy  likeness ;  and  be  brought  into  accord  with  thee,  and  made  beau- 
tiful, as  thou,  in  the  beauty  of  holiness,  art  transcendently  lovely. 

We  pray  that  on  earth  we  may  be  prepared  for  thy  service  in  that  land  of 
liberty  where  we  shall  no  longer  be  bound  and  hindered ;  where  we  shall 
no  longer  be  uncertain ;  where  we  shall  see  thee  as  thou  art,  and  be  satisfied. 
Behold,  we  beseech  of  thee,  those  who  bear  burdens.  Teach  them,  under 
all  their  burdens,  to  have  a  cheerful  trust  in  God.  Behold  those  who  are  in 
darkness,  and  have  no  light.  May  they  have  that  faith  which  sees  the  invisi- 
ble, and  which  interprets  the  meaning  of  hidden  things  around  about  them. 
Look  upon  those  who  are  tempted,  and  are  as  if  vehemently  attacked  by 
adversaries,  and  are  scarcely  able  to  defend  themselves.  We  pray  that  they 
may  have  strength  from  God,  and  be  clothed  with  the  whole  panoply  of  the 
Gospel,  so  that  they  shall  be  able  to  stand  even  in  the  hour  of  direst  assault. 
We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  those  who  are 
bearing  the  burden  and  the  heat  of  the  day,  being  called  to  the  transaction 
of  the  secular  affairs  of  life.  As  their  day  is,  so  may  their  strength  be  also. 
May  their  hearts  not  succumb  to  the  temptations  of  life.  May  they  bear  up, 
and  become  ministers  of  peace.  May  Christ  be  known  by  their  fidelity  and 
integrity. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  the  number  of  those  who  seek  to 
become  men  in  Christ  Jesus  may  be  multiplied.  We  pray  that  they  may 
seek  each  other,  and  find  each  other  out.  May  those  in  all  nations  who  are 
children  of  God  know  each  other.  May  those  walls  of  partition  which  have 
honestly  but  igncrantly  been  built  vip  by  men's  hands,  at  last  be  broken 
down  and  taken  out  of  the  way.  Aiid  we  pray  that  men  may  love  each 
other,  even  as  God  loves  them.  We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  that 
we  may  be  more  concerned  to  destroy  the  common  enemy  than  to  tear  each 
other  to  pieces. 

Grant  that  wickedness  may  cease  to  have  such  fascination  and  power  in 
all  the  earth.  May  there  be  more  light,  more  knowledge,  and  more  divine 
inspiration  to  make  knowledge  effectual.  We  pray  for  the  cleansing  of  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  for  the  renewing  of  their  will.  We  pray  that  they  may 
be  born  again  into  the  new  and  spiritual  life,  that  they  may  behold  the 
heaven  above  them,  and  that  they  may  know  what  it  means.  We  pray  that 
thou  wilt  clothe  thy  people  with  such  patience  and  steadfastness  that  mgi, 
beholding  their  strength  and  experience,  shall  be  drawn  into  the  great  faith 
and  love  of  Jesus  Christ  which  hath  inspired  them. 

•  We  beseech  of  thee,  that  thou  wilt  look  upon  all  those  who  need,  in  espe- 
cial, our  sympathy.  If  thei'o  be  those  who  are  kept  away  from  us  by  sick- 
ness, be  with  them  in  that  sickness,  and  alleviate  their  pain.  And  if  they  are 
walking  the  last  steps  upon  the  appointed  path,  and  are  drawing  near  to  the 


THE  ni-JLiaior^  USES  of  music.  303 

other  life,  may  they  begin  to  discern  the  tokens  thereof.  May  they  behold 
the  briplit  shining  of  the  gate  and  the  battlements,  and  hear  the  notes  of  that 
song  in  which  they  soon  shall  join. 

If  thei-e  be  those  who  are  Avithheld  from  us  by  the  sickness  of  others,  be 
thou  in  their  hearts  to-day,  and  make  the  room  of  duty  the  sanctuaiy  of 
God  to  them. 

We  pray  for  those  who  are  separated  from  us,  having  gone  about  every 
whither,  upon  the  sea  and  upon  the  land.  We  commend  them  all  to  thy 
holy  care  and  keeping. 

We  b6S;;ech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  be  very  near  to  any  who  are  in  bereave- 
ment, and  whose  sorrows  will  not  let  them  rest.  Oh !  thou  that  didst  calm  the 
troul.)led  sea,  and  sweep,  by  thy  word,  the  storm  out  of  the  heaven,  thou  also 
canst  comfort  those  who  are  in  the  deepest  affliction.  In  the  bosom  of  thy 
love  may  they  find  that  peace  which  the  world  cannot  give  them. 

Bless,  to-day,  everywhere,  all  those  who  preach  the  word  of  God.  May 
they  be  armed  with  fidelity  and  intelligence.  May  it  not  be  a  vain  labor 
which  they  shall  perform.  Gi'ant  that  thy  word  may  evel'y where  he  spread 
abroad.  May  it  address  itself  to  the  consciences  and  understandings  of  men 
everywhere.  May  men  learn  truth,  and  purity,  and  fidelity,  and  love,  and 
justice,  and  aspiration.  We  pray  that  the  knowledge  of  God  as  he  shines  in 
the  face  of  Christ  Jesus  may  be  boiue  all  around  the  world,  and  that  those 
great  and  glorious  predictions  may  not  linger,  which  promise  that  the  whole 
earth  shall  be  the  kingdom  of  the  Saviour.  O  Lord  God,  the  signs  are 
already  rising  in  the  horizon.  Be  pleased,  we  beseech  of  thee,  to  press  for- 
ward thy  work. 

Remember  any  who  are  in  foreign  lands  to-day,  any  who  are  in  the  wil- 
derness, any  who  are  in  the  midst  of  the  dark  minded  peoples  of  the  earth, 
seeking  to  lead  them  into  nobler  paths.  Comfort  their  hearts.  Strengthen 
their  hands  evermore.  And  though  they  lay  foundations  which  others  shall 
build  upon,  though  they  sow  seeds  whose  harvests  others  shall  reap,  may 
they  be  content  to  labor  anyv.here.  May  they  be  willing  to  do  the  hard 
work,  so  that  others  may  have  ease  in  their  labor;  and  may  they  look  for 
their  reward  in  the  kingdom  of  glory. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  gi-ant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  all  governments 
and  upon  all  rulers.  Wilt  thou  T)lefS  the  President  of  these  United  States, 
and  those  Avho  are  joined  with  hira  in  authority.  Bless,  we  beseech  of  thee, 
the  governors  of  the  sevoi'al  States,  the  legislatures,  the  courts,  and  all  offi- 
cers and  magistrates  throughcut  our  broad  domain.  We  pray  that  they  may- 
be men  who  shall  fear  God ;  and  that  they  may  be  men  who  shall  do  right- 
eouslj'-.  Grant,  we  pi'ay  thee,  that  the  daj^  may  speedilj'  come  when  no  one 
shall  ne(!d  to  saj'  to  his  neighbor.  Know  ye  the  Lord,  but  when  all  shall  know 
him,  from  the  gr(>atest  to  the  least.  And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise," 
Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  evermore.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  thee  to  bless  us  in  the  truth  which  we  have  con- 
sidered. Prepare;  us  by  righteousness  upon  earth  for  t-lu?  ministration  of 
sacred  song,  and  for  all  its  cleansing,  inspiring,  comforting,  and  instructing 
influences.    Bless,  Ave  beseech  of  thee,  the  efforts  which  are  made  for  its 


304  TEE  BELIGIOUS  USES  OF  MUSIC 

extension.  Bless  its  schools  and  its  teachers,  and  all  the  little  voices  which 
are  lisping  music  in  their  first  daj-s.  Grant  that  no  child  who  learns  to  sing 
among  us  may  fail  to  be  in  the  choir  above  where  we  hope  to  sing.  Bless  the 
great  gathering  which  is  assembled  in  a  neighboring  city.  May  the  hand  of 
God,  which  has  preserved  it  from  accident  or  harm,  stib  be  over  it.  And 
may  those  things  which  men  have  faintly  or  fondly  hoped  would  be  accomp- 
lished be  more  and  more  abundantly  fulfilled  than  they  have  expected. 

Spread  abroad,  we  pray  thee,  the  spirit  of  song  which  grows  into  friend- 
ship and  gladness  of  heart,  and  which  unites  men  to  the  heart  of  God.  Wilt 
thou  fill  the  whole  earth  with  the  joy  of  thy  salvation.  And  to  the  Father^ 
the  Son,  and  the  Spirit  shall  be  praises  evermore.    Amen. 


XVII. 

Peaceable  Living. 


INVOCATION. 

Let  thy  grace  descend  upon  us,  our  Father,  as  the  rain  upon  the  thirsty 
earth,  as  the  dew  upon  the  perishing  flower,  that  they  may  revive  again. 
Draw  near  to  us  by  thy  life-giving  power.  Evoke  from  oiu*  hearts  those 
affections  which  he  dormant,  or  direct  them  if  they  wake,  that  they  may 
find  thee.  And  grant  that  thy  presence  may  be  to  us  a  cheer  and  a  comfort, 
and  the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land  to  those  who  are  spent  with 
the  heat  of  the  day.  Be  thou  a  light,  a  Sun  of  Righteousness,  .to  those  who 
sit  in  darkness,  or  are  chilled  with  the  cold.  Bring  forth  in  all  the  peaceable 
fruit  of  righteousness.  Grant  that  the  services  of  the  sanctuary  may  be 
divinely  guided— our  songs  of  praise;  our  prayers;  our  speaking  and  listen- 
ing; our  meditation.  And  grant  that  thy  presence  may  cheer  all  the  hours 
of  the  day.  that  it  may  be  the  Lord's  day — the  best  of  all  the  days  of  the 
week.    We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Arnen. 

15. 


PEACEABLE  LIVING. 


"  If  it  be  pcwsible,  as  much  as  lieth  in  you,  live  peaceably  with  all  men."- 
RoM.  xn.  I8f. 


Living  at  peace  "with  our  fellowmen  is  a  profitable  aim  in  life, 
and  is  worthy  of  thought  and  study,  and  then  of  earnest  efibrt.  It 
cannot  always  be  done.  The  wisest  men,  the  best  men,  the  most 
thoughtful  men,  the  men  who  are  most  studious  of  peace,  may  have 
contention  forced  upon  them.  Lot  could  not  live  peaceably  with 
the  inhabitants  of  Sodom — to  his  great  credit.  Moses  could  not 
live  at  peace  with  Egypt,  when  he  saw  his  people  oppressed.  It 
■would  have  been  a  shame  if  he  could.  Samuel  could  not  live  at 
peace  when  the  king,  despotic,  arrogant,  fractious,  was  misleading 
the  people.  David  could  not  live  at  peace  with  SauL  Saul  would 
not  let  him.  The  prophets  could  not  live  at  peace  with  the  idola- 
trous people  whom  they  were  sent  to  instruct  and  rebuke,  and  who 
would  not  be  corrected  nor  reformed.  Jesus  could  not  live  at  peace. 
The  most  genial,  and  gentle,  and  meek,  and  merciful,  and  loving  of 
all  beings  was  he ;  and  yet,  it  was  impossible  that  he  should  live  at 
peace  with  his  own  countrymen,  in  his  own  time.  Therefore  you 
find  it  said,  "If  it  be  possible."  In  this  great  quarrelsome  world, 
it  is  not  made  obligatory  on  a  man  to  be  at  peace  with  his  fellow- 
men  anyhow.  The  command  begins  with  the  implication  that  it  is 
not  always  possible.  The  qualitication  is,  "as  much  as  lieth  in 
you."  You  may  be  at  discords  ;  but  see  to  it  that  you  do  not  pro- 
duce them.  Let  them  be  the  result  of  other  men's  misconduct,  and 
not  of  yours. 

A  man,  therefore,  may  be  at  odds  with  his  fellowmen,  and  yet 
be  a  peaceable  man — a  man  peace-loving  and  peace-seeking.  As  far 
as  in  him  lies  he  may  be  living  peaceably ;  and  yet  he  may  be  in  con- 
tention. We  must  sometimes  be  in  contention  in  law.  We  must 
sometimes  be  in  contention  in  great  discussions.  We  must  strive  and 
contend  for  great  moral  truths,  and  for  causes  which  turn  on  the 
discussion  of  great  moral  truths.     It  is  impossible  that  there  should 

SiTNBAT  MonxiNG,  Jiino  30,  1872.  Lesson  :  Rom.  XII.  Htmns  (Plymouth  Collection) 
Nos.  6C0,  73i,  701. 


308  PJEA  CEABLE  LI  VING. 

be  contention  where  great  interests  are  involved,  and  where  the  appe« 
tites  and  passions  of  men  have  become  rooted  in  some  wrong,  with- 
out there  being  cause  and  occasion  of  much  disquiet  and  uneasiness 
and  unpeaceableness. 

The  Lord  himself  said,  "I  am  not  come  to  bring  peace,  but  a 
sword ;'  and  so  a  Christian  man,  sweet  tempered,  most  sympathetic, 
most  genial  and  kind,  may  agitate  his  times  Avith  fierce  discords, 
and  yet  may  be  excusable — nay,  justifiable. 

It  is  not  in  regard  to  these  moral  and  public  reformatory  rela- 
tions that  the  passage  particularly  speaks.  It  is  with  respect  to  our 
ordinary  conduct  in  the  household,  in  society,  and  in  tlie  transac* 
tions  of.  common  business.  We  are  commanded,  as  a  part  of  our 
allegiance  to  God  and  of  our  proper  Christian  duty,  so  to  carry 
ourselves,  in  all  our  daily  and  familiar  relations,  tliat  if  there  be  con- 
flict and  disturbance,  it  shall  not  be  our  fault.  Of  course,  if  you  be 
proud,  you  will  say  it  is  not  your  fault  at  any  rate ;  but  it  must  not 
be  our  fault  in  the  sight  of  God  if  there  is  not  peace  and  quietness 
where  we  are  present. 

Men  may  live  together  largely  in  peace  from  the  fact  that  they 
do  not  care  for  each  other,  and  do  not  come  near  each  other.  We 
are  living  very  peaceably  with  the  Chinese  that  are  in  China ;  not 
so  peaceably  Avith  those  who  are  in  California.  Men  in  a  vast  hotel 
are  living  at  peace  with  each  other.  That  is,  they  do  not  know 
each  other.  One  does  not  even  know  that  the  other  is  there.  They 
have  no  commerce  whatever.  It  Avould  be  a  pity  if  a  man  could  not 
live  at  peace  with  people  whom  he  did  not  see  and  mingle  Avith. 

So,  in  hfe,  Ave  may  ignore  men.  "We  may  have  so  little  to  do 
Avith  them,  that  Ave  shall  be  at  peace  Avith  them  in  a  negative  Avay. 

Then,  there  may  be  a  kind  of  forced  peace.  There  may  be  a 
peace  which  is  the  result  of  pride  and  of  self-command.  Our 
thoughts  may  be  truculent,  sharp,  analytic,  bitter.  Our  analysis  is 
usually  such  as  Avasps  make  Avith  their  sting.  Men  have  inside  cen- 
soriousness  by  which  they  dissect  the  faults  of  others,  and  keep  it  to 
themselves.  They  are,  in  some  sense,  therefore,  peaceable ;  but 
they  are  not  peaceable  in  the  sight  of  God. 

An  unexploded  torpedo  is  peaceable ;  but  we  should  not  con- 
sider it  an  implement  of  peace.  It  has  everything  ready  for  an  ex- 
plosion Avhen  it  is  touched  ofi*. 

And  so  a  man  cannot  be  expected  to  have  the  Gospel  disposi- 
tion of  peace  simply  because  he  is  not  in  a  broil,  so  long  as  he  has 
dispositions  which,  upon  occasion,  Avhen  a  fit  opportunity  presents 
itself,  Avill  bring  liini  into  some  disagreeable  collision  with  men  It 
may  be  called  a  latent  Avar — a  kind  of  truce. 


PEACEABLE  LIVING.  309 

Cordial  peace — that  iu  which  good-will  exists ;  that  ia  wh^ch 
men  like  and  are  liked  ;  that  in  w^hich  men  give  and  get  happiness; 
that  in  which  men  help  each  other — that  is  the  peace  which  is 
meant.  Peace  which  lightens  the  burdens  of  life,  which  diminishes 
the  friction  of  life,  which  takes  away  the  cares  of  life,  which  makes 
men  helpful  one  toward  another,  which  removes  from  men  all  forms 
of  vindictiveness,  of  oppressiveness,  of  exaggerated  pride,  and  of 
vanity — that  is  the  kind  of  peace  that  is  meant.  Active,  virtue- 
peace — not  merely  indifferent,  negative  peace — that  is  what  is 
meant. 

I  will  point  out  some  of  the  causes  as  observed,  as  experienced, 
as  shown,  which  tend  to  the  destruction  of  peace,  and  some  of  the 
more  familiar  agencies  by  which  we  may  live  at  peace  with  all  mei.. 

First,  self-seeking  is  one  of  the  causes  of  discord — that  self- 
seekmg  which,  in  little  things  and  in  great,  tends  to  violate  the 
rights  of  others.  All  men  must,  in  one  sense,  be  self-seeking. 
The  term  self-seeking,  in  its  offensive  designation,  does  not  apply 
to  those  who  simply  seek  food,  raiment,  rest,  and  a  sphere  of  ac- 
tivity. These  are  normal  rights.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  life, 
unless  it  be  forfeited  by  crime.  He  has  a  right  to  all  those  agencies 
which  go  to  give  him  power  and  wisdom.  So  much  attention  to 
our  own  selves  as  is  necessary  for  our  happiness  is  not  selfishness, 
and  is  not  in  any  odious  sense  self-seeking.  But,  over  and  above 
that,  there  are  thousands  of  persons  that  are  well-meaning,  who 
disturb  those  that  are  around  about  them  by  self-peeking.  Uncon- 
sciously they  put  themselves  forward.  Perhaps,  because  they  are  a 
little  more  alert,  and  have  a  little  more  experience,  they  are  in  first 
They  get  a  little  of  the  best  on  the  right  and  on  the  left.  And 
people  who  are  in  their  presence  find  it  disagreeable.  They  are  not 
cheated,  but  they  are  second  best  all  the  time.  They  see  these  per- 
sons, who  are  no  better  than  they  are — not  so  good — in  disposition, 
having,  in  little  things,  the  best  of  life  all  around  about  them,  by  a 
sort  of  constant,  alert  self-seeking. 

Although  this  does  not  rise  to  the  dignity  of  a  grave  offence,  it 
does  rise  to  the  dignity  of  mischief.  It  tends  to  rile  men.  It  tends 
to  keep  them  in  a  disagreeable  state  of  mind. 

If  you  sit  at  table  in  the  household,  and  there  be  one  boarder 
who  is  forward  in  securing  all  the  delicacies  which  are  served, ;  who 
has  an  advantage,  by  some  diplomacy,  with  all  the  servants;  who  ia 
on  the  right  side,  in  some  mysterious  way,  with  the  superintendent, 
and  is  perpetually  favored  in  all  things — there  is  scarcely  one  person 
in  that  whole  artificial  household  who  does  not  feel,  in  some  way, 
annoyed  and  irritated.  The  peace  is  broken — and  that  without 
any  intention  on  his  part  to  break  the  peace. 


310  PEACEABLE  LIVING. 

In  all  our  intercourse  with  men,  we  are  bound  not  only  to  avoid 
outright  and  violent  selfishness,  which  is  aggressive,  but  also  to 
avoid  minor  forms  of  selfishness.  It  is  true  that  a  particle  of 
emery  thrown  at  a  man  will  not  hurt  him  as  much  as  if  a  rock 
were  thrown  at  him ;  but  a  particle  of  emery  in  a  man's  shoe  will 
annoy  him  all  day  long,  and  take  away  his  peace  and  comfort, 
And  a  selfishness  which  does  not  meet  a  man,  like  a  lion,  in  his 
path,  and  attack  him  with  paw  and  tooth,  may  attack  him  in  such 
a  way  as  to  keep  him  irritated  and  chafed  all  the  time.  There  are 
thousands  of  things  that  chafe  our  fellow  men  which  we  do  not 
think  of;  but  we  are  to  live  peaceably  with  all  men,  and  we  are  to 
see  to  it  that  our  influence  does  not  rouse  up  and  chafe  their  feel- 
ings and  dispositions. 

This  is  a  region  in  which  etiquette  is  moral  duty.  Though  many 
of  the  forms  of  society,  and  much  of  its  usage,  will,  at  times,  be  car- 
ried to  an  immoderate  extent,  yet,  in  the  main,  etiquette  is  the  com- 
mon law  of  kindness  in  common  things.  It  is  what  experience  has 
determined  to  be  the  best  under  all  circumstances,  and  it  is  not  to 
be  set  aside  as  something  which  belongs  to  the  realm  of  fashion,  and 
to  persons  who  feel  themselves  to  be  greater  than  their  neighbors. 
It  is  hard  to  get  along  without  friction.  Little  annoyances,  though 
they  are  minute  in  each  instance,  are  yet  like  the  particles  of  the 
fragrance  of  a  flower  which  fill  the  air  by  their  multitude,  and  not 
by  the  magnitude  of  any  single  particle. 

Vanity  oftentimes  tends  to  peace,  inasmucli  as  it  makes  men 
behave  themselves  for  the  sake  of  being  praised ;  but  when  it  exists 
in  excess,  it  becomes  obnoxious,  and  is  chargeable  with  being  a  dis- 
turber of  the  peace. 

It  may  tend  to  amusement.  There  are  those  whose  vanity  is  so 
curious,  so  wonderfully  made,  and  so  strangely  worn,  that  it  amuses 
persons  as  much  as  a  fool's  bells  do  children,  or  as  much  as  a  clown's 
stripes,  in  a  circus,  do  the  lookers-on.  There  are  those  whom 
everybody  except  themselves  knows  to  be  vain,  and  they  are  full  of 
the  little  indications  of  vanity.  "Where  it  is  combined,  in  the  main, 
with  good  sense,  and  with  sterling  qualities,  we  not  only  put  up 
with  it,  but  sometimes  even  become  fond  of  it. 

When  men  seek  for  beautiful  wood,  to  use  in  cabinet  work,  they 
seek,  not  for  that  which  is  straight-grained,  but  for  knots,  or  for 
those  parts  which  are  formed  where  the  branches  grow  together,  and 
which  are  full  of  contortions.  Crooked  wood,  sawed  into  veneers, 
and  polished,  makes  the  most  beautiful  work  that  there  is. 

So,  sometimes,  men's  little  faults,  if  they  be  of  the  right  kind, 
are  a  sort  of  ornamentation.     Though  we  cannot  saw  them  out  into 


PEACEABLE  LIVING.  311 

veneers,  and  put  them  over  other  things,  yet  those  things  Avhich  consti- 
tute men's  oddities  oftentimes  make  them  agreeable  to  us.  We  do 
not  want  men  to  be  like  candles  cast  in  one  mold,  and  all  just  the 
same.  We  want  individuals  to  be  distinguishable  one  from  another. 
We  do  not  like  stereot}'ped  people.  We  shonld  not  like  to  have 
everybody's  face  like  everybody  else's  face.  It  would  not  be  agree- 
able to  the  eye.  And  we  do  not  like  to  see  persons'  dispositions  all 
alike.  One  reason  why  perfect  people  are  not  so  agreeable  as  imper- 
fect people  are,  is,  that  they  are  so  much  alike.  They  have  a  cer- 
tain sort  of  straightness  and  precision  in  their  goodness,  and  we 
wish  that  they  were  not  so  good.  We  like  to  have  our  friends  carry 
their  heads  high  in  the  air,  toward  heaven ;  and  yet,  we  like  to  have 
their  feet  on  the  ground,  that  they  may  be  alongside  of  us,  and  that 
we  may  know  that  they  touch  the  earth  as  well  as  we.  Men's  faults 
sometimes  become  attractive  in  one  way  or  another. 

There  is  a  disagreeable  and  ill-advised  measuring  of  one's  faults. 
Where  a  man  is  excessively  proud,  we  have  a  latent  feeling,  "  Thank 
God,  I  am  not  so  proud  as  he  is."  Where  a  man  is  stingy,  we  are 
apt  to  say,  "  My  pocket  is  large  in  the  mouth."  Where  a  man 
stumbles  and  bungles,  we  say,  "  I  would  not  be  such  a  person  for 
all  the  world."  That  is  to  say,  "  I  am  not  such  a  person.  I  am  not 
a  stumbler  nor  a  bungler."  Aside  from  this,  however,  there  may 
be  in  a  man's  vanity  an  element  of  kindness  and  benevolence  which 
makes  it  not  only  endurable,  but  sometimes  beautiful  and  palatable. 

But  then,  where  there  is  an  avarice  of  praise,  where  vanity 
tends  to  falsity,  where  it  works  under  guises,  and  sets  snares  and 
traps  to  catch  praise,  a  man  may  be  disagreeable ;  and  so,  often- 
times, a  person,  by  his  vanity,  sets  people  ai'ound  about  him  at  odds 
against  him,  and  against  each  other. 

Under  such  circumstances,  vanity  naturally  excites  a  desire  to 
punish  it.  Where  we  see  men  in  a  social  circle  about  us  carrying 
themselves  as  they  ought  not  to,  every  man  feels  that  there  is  a 
small  section  of  the  judgment  day  in  him,  and  desires  to  avenge 
himself  on  them,  by  annoying  them  in  some  way.  If  we  see  that  a 
man  is  inordinately  vain,  we  want  to  humble  him;  we  want  to 
bring  him  down;  we  Avant  to  stop  him  in  his  course.  Inordinate 
vanity  is  a  provocation  to  minor  forms  of  vengeance. 

How  to  cure  a  man  who  is  constitutionally  vain  I  do  not  know. 
I  do  not  believe  constitutional  vanity  can  be  cured.  It  may  be 
made  benevolent,  and  it  may  be  disciplined  and  restrained  here  and 
there.  I  have  seen  pride  very  much  modified.  I  have  seen  irrita- 
ble persons  become  very  self-governed.  I  have  seen  persons  who 
were  inordinately  stingy  become  generous.     But  I  do  not  know 


312  PEACEABLE  LIVING, 

tliat  I  ever  saw  a  person  in  whom  inordinate  vanity  was  cured  oi 
materially  modified.  Everything  seems  to  play  into  that  fanlt,  and 
make  it  permanent.  I  do  not  know  of  anything  that  will  remedy 
it  except  that  medicine  which  cures  all  things — death.  And  yet,  if 
it  be  possible,  as  much  as  lieth  in  you,  though  you  be  vain,  live 
peaceably  with  all  men.    Do  the  best  you  can  with  your  vanity. 

Pride,  or  a  sense  of  one's  own  proper  individuality,  is  one  of  the 
noblest  of  human  attributes.  It  is  the  very  core  of  manhood.  It 
approaches  to  a  moral  sense.  It  is  one's  own  proper,  inward,  indi- 
vidual personality.  A  sense  of  our  own  importance,  of  our 
own  worth,  in  the  great  sphere  of  manhood,  makes  us  self-reliant 
and  independent.  It  often  acts  as  a  moral  sense,  and  restrains  us 
from  things  that  are  base  and  vile.  But  where  it  transcends  its 
proper  foice,  and  acts  in  an  exaggerated  form,  it  is  exceedingly  pro- 
vocative.    It  makes  men  cold,  and  haughty,  and  unsocial. 

I  have  seen  men  in  whom  there  was  no  more  sign  of  geniality,  of 
sympathy,  or  of  a  sense  of  their  connection  with  their  fellow-men, 
than  there  is  of  vegetating  growth  in  the  icicle.  They  were  abso- 
lutely cold  among  their  fellow-men. 

Pride  not  only  tends  to  shut  a  man  up  in  himself  coldly,  but  it 
tends,  through  haughtiness,  to  lead  men  to  esteem  others  less  than 
themselves.  Proud  men  often  look  down  upon  their  fellow-men 
with  a  spirit  of  contempt. 

There  are  two  ways  of  looking  down.  There  is  the  way  in  which 
a  judge  looks  down  on  a  sneak-thief,  when  he  is  about  to  sentence 
him;  and  there  is  the  way  in  which  a  mother  looks  down  on  her 
babe  in  the  cradle.  Looking  down  is  a  different  thing  when  it  is 
love  that  looks,  from  what  it  is  when  it  is  indignation,  or  a  sense 
of  superiority.  One  bruises  and  mangles,  and  the  other  nourishes, 
and  fills  the  soul  with  joy. 

Now,  proud  men  are  fond  of  esteeming  others  as  their  in- 
feriors, and  of  carrying  themselves  accordingly ;  and  their  presence 
is  a  proclamation  of  contempt.  Many  persons  never  go  into 
the  presence  of  a  contemptuous  and  proud  man  without  feeling 
irritated.  A  man's  pride  leads  him  to  assume  an  attitude  of  defi- 
ance, not  because  he  means  to  throw  out  a  challenge,  but  because 
the  natural  tendency  of  pride  is  to  put  a  man  on  his  mettle. 

You  go  into  the  presence  of  a  round,  rosy,  happy,  genial-hearted 
man,  and  he  says  to  you,  "  Well,  neighbor,  how  about  tliese  little 
matters  which  we  agreed  to  ?  Have  not  you  forgotten  them  ?"  You 
instantly  say,  "  I  beg  a  thousand  pardons.  I  had  forgotten  them." 
He  wins  you  right  to  his  side,  the  first  moment,  and  you  thank  him 
for  calling  your  attention  to  your  fault,  and  make  haste  to  cor- 
rect it. 


PEACEABLE  LIVING.  313 

The  same  tiling  happens  between  you  and  your  proud  neigh- 
bor, and  he  looks  upon  you  in  a  supercilious  way,  and  says,  '•  I 
thought  there  was  an  agreeement  between  us  about  these  matters." 
You  straighten  up,  and  say,  "What  if  you  did."  You  instantly 
throw  yourself  into  a  pugnacious  attitude,  and  there  is  a  battle  at 
once. 

Men  defend  wrongs  in  themselves,  even  when  they  know  that 
they  are  wrong,  if  they  are  called  to  account  for  them  by  the 
haughty  pride  and  assumption  of  men.  Especially  this  is  the  case 
if  we  are  proud  too — and  most  of  us  are,  in  spots.  At  times  there 
may  be  found  something  of  pride  even  in  the  most  obsequious  per- 

"V^liS. 

""J^js  i?yif3e  gepfwates  one  man  from  another.  It  leads  to  a  want 
of  sympainy  ueicween  them,  and  keeps  them  apart.  It  prevents 
their  participation  in  that  healthful  intercourse  on  which  the  peace 
and  integrity  of  society  depend, 

I  hinted  at  the  unconscious  natural  language  of  pride.  One  of 
the  most  important  practical  truths  which  you  observe  in  the  carry- 
ing out  of  life,  is  that  that  faculty  in  you  which  predominates  over 
every  other  will  tend  to  reproduce  its  action  in  the  minds  of  sus- 
ceptible persons  with  whom  you  come  in  contact.  If  you,  being 
extremely  weighed  down  and  sober,  go  into  a  room  where  people 
are  merry,  in  a  short  time  there  will  steal  over  them  a  sort  of  liush- 
ing,  sobering  influence.  Your  influence  upon  those  present  will  be 
like  that  of  a  piece  of  ice  in  a  tumbler  of  water. 

If  a  physician  goes  into  a  sick-room,  as  every  physician  should, 
■with  a  chfeerful  countenance  and  with  encouraging  words,  how  the 
thermometer  rises  in  the  patient's  mood!  There  is  hope  where 
before  there  was  deep  despondency. 

If-  you  are  a  mirthful  man,  and  you  are  in  company,  it  will  not 
be  long  before  you  will  excite  a  spirit  of  mirthfulness  in  those  who 
are  around  you.  If  you  relate  a  mirthful  story,  their  memo- 
ries will  recall  mirthful  scenes.  Your  state  of  mind  will  reproduce 
itself  in  them. 

If  you  are  irascible,  men  with  whom  you  come  in  contact  will 
likewise  be  apt  to  be  irascible.  You  go  home  at  night,  and  say,  "I 
never  saw  so  many  cross  people  in  this  town  as  I  have  seen  to-day." 
Well,  you  carried  the  fire-brand  which  set  them  a-going.  Your 
combativeness  and  irritability  excited  the  same  qualities  in  them. 

Proud  people  are  "very  liable  to  be  met  by  proud  people.  You 
■will  hear  a  proud  man  say,  "Everybody  insulted  me  to-day:  the 
drayman  insulted  me;  the  ticket-man- at  the  ferry  insulted  me; 
the  car-conductor  insulted  me;  business  men  insulted  me."    All 


314  pi; ACE  ABLE  LIVING. 

day  long  the  man  has  been  perfectly  salted  with  insults;  and  yet, 
he  has  brought  them  all  upon  himself. 

Let  a  man  carry  himself  as  though  he  were  a  sovereign ;  let 
him  feel  that  he  is  better  than  other  people;  let  him  act  so  that 
pride  shall  utter  its  natural  language,  and  everybody  will  defend 
himself  against  that  pride,  all  bringing  the  same  feeling  to  bear 
in  return.     Let  your  dog  bark,  and  my  dog  will  answer  him. 

So,  then,  men  may,  quite  unconsciously,  by  the  natural  lan- 
guage of  an  overweening  pride,  stir  up  their  fellow-men  with  per- 
petual irritations  and  annoyances.  A  man  thinks  himself  to  be 
most  peaceable ;  he  does  not  know  why  it  is  that  everybody  quar- 
rels with  him ;  and  yet,  he  quarrels  with  everybody. 

I  need  not  say  that  combativeness,  in  both  its  open  and  latent 
forms,  is  subject  to  the  charge  of  breaking  the  peace.  In  its  open 
form  it  takes  on  intellectual  phases.  There  are  a  great  many  men 
who  cannot  produce  conviction  in  a  discussion,  who  fail  to 
convince  in  preaching  or  oratory,  because  they  are  so  dispu- 
tatious. If  you  stand  on  one  side  of  the  street  with  a  bo^s^, 
and  men  are  passing  on  the  other  side,  and  you  dra\v^  it  at 
them,  they  throw  up  their  shield  if  they  have  anything  to  de- 
fend themselves  with.  They  do  not  want  to  be  hit,  and  so  they 
endeavor  to  protect  themselves.  So,  if  a  man  who  is  discussing 
a  matter  discusses  it  pugnaciously,  and  hurls  his  opinions  at  you 
dogmatically,  you  take  his  manner  and  attitude  as  a  challenge  to 
defend  yourself.  You  will  not  have  opinions  crammed  down  your 
throat.  Your  self-respect  is  hurt  by  a  man  v.ho  undertakes  to  com- 
pel you  to  accept  his  views.  You  are  not  willing  to  acknowledge 
that  he  is  the  only  man  in  the  world  who  knows  anything.  If  he 
lays  down  his  doctrine,  and  says  that  there  is  no  possible  getting 
away  from  it,  you  say,  "  Well,  I  will  see  if  I  cannot  get  away  from 
it."  He  provokes  you  by  his  dogmatism.  This  is  not  the  way  to 
convince  men.  Many  men  will  take  a  thought  from  you  as  a  gift, 
hut  will  not  let  you  throw  it  into  their  house  as  a  bomb.  You  will 
often  see  a  man  who  is  in  many  respects  well-meaning  and  right- 
sided,  by  his  excessive  pugnacity  drive  men  away  from  him.  I  have 
known  men  who  would  have  driven  an  audience  of  a  thousand  peo- 
ple away  from  them  every  year,  all  their  life  long,  if  they  had  had 
a  chance.  They  were  quite  unconscious  that  the  reason  of  their 
unpopularity  was  their  own  excessive,  bull-headed  combativeness. 
They  thought  that  men  were  totally  depraved,  and  did  not  like 
the  truth,  and  tluit  they  did  not  like  them  because  they  preached 
the  truth. 

The  same  is  true  in  reo-ard  to  conversation  and  social  relations. 


PDA CEABLE  LIVING.  315 

A  man  may  keep  men  in  a  disagreeable  mood  so  that  they  will  not 
like  to  talk  with  him.  When  he  talks,  he  legislates ;  when  he  holds 
intercourse,  he  does  it  as  a  sovereign  would ;  and  he  annoys  and 
offends  men.     This  is  the  intellectual  form  of  combativeness. 

Men  may  be  pugnacious,  quarrelsome  in  their  dispositions, 
and  yet  they  may  not  know  it.  A.  man  may  have  disagree- 
able qualities  which  utterly  separate  between  him  and  those 
around  about  him,  and  yet  be  unconscious  of  it.  "  Learn  of  me, 
for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart,"  said  the  Saviour.  There  are 
persons  who  seem  never  to  have  known  what  this  passage  means. 
They  are  almost  invariably  quarrelsome.  In  everything  their 
whole  life  puts  on  the  form  of  attack. 

But  there  are  latent  forms  of  combativeness  which  are  more 
common.  There  is  what  may  be  called  supersensibility.  There 
are  cases  where  combativeness  or  irritability  is  latent.  Though  it 
does  not  show  itself,  probably  it  works  in  the  brain  and  keeps  it 
excited. 

Sulkiness,  moroseness,  ali  modified  forms  of  temper,  are  sources, 
not  only  of  unhappiness  to  the  persons  in  whom  they  exist,  but 
of  annoyance  to  those  who  are  around  about  them.  All  forms  .of 
observation,  all  criticism,  all  wit  and  humor,  which  are  employed 
at  the  expense  of  men's  feelings,  are  latent  forms  of  combativeness. 
I  am  sorry  for  f)ersons  who  always  see  the  bad  first,  and  the  good 
last,  or  never.  Whether  it  be  in  art,  or  whether  it  be  in  the  con- 
duct of  affairs,  or  whether  it  be  in  social  life,  one  should  know 
what  is  harmony  and  what  is  discord,  what  is  straight  and  what  is 
crooked,  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong.  A  man  that  is  strongly 
sensitive  to  the  beautiful  and  true  and  right,  is  in  a  healthy  condi- 
tion of  mind — and  health  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  the 
world.  In  the  plant,  in  its  place ;  in  the  animal,  in  its  place ;  in 
society,  in  its  place;  in  all  parts  of  the  mental  economy,  a  healthy, 
normal  condition — that  is  the  thing  which  is  the  most  beautiful, 
and  which  ought  to  be  the  most  attractive. 

There  are  those  who  think  that  to  see  people's  weaknesses,  and 
to  hold  them  up  in  the  light  of  ridicule,  shows  a  peculiar  smart- 
ness— something  more  than  a  common  strength  of  mind ;  but  I 
do  not  think  it  does. 

Suppose  there  should  be  a  fellow  so  dexterous  that,  walking 
along  the  street,  and  seeing  an  old  gentleman  passing  by,  he  could 
give  hirii  a  nip  in  a  manner  so  sly  that  no  one  could  know  how  it 
was  done;  and  suppose  he  should  rejoice  to  see  the  old  gentleman 
jump  r'  Suppose  there  was  a  little  boy  so  cunning  that,  stooping, 
he  could  hit  the  man  so  that  he  should  not  know  who  hit  him,  and 


316  PJ^A  CEABLE  LIVING. 

he  should  langh  to  see  the  mau  rise  up  and  look  around  in  amaze- 
ment to  see  where  the  hlow  came  from  ?  Suppose  one  should  throw 
a  torpedo  under  a  man's  feet  so  deftly  as  not  to  he  discovered  in  the 
act,  and  should  enjoy  seeing  the  man  jump  and  look  in  vain  to  see 
who  it  was  that  threw  it  ?  Suppose  there  should  be  one  who,  for 
his  own  pleasure,  everywhere  he  went,  gave  some  annoyance  to 
everybody  that  passed  by  him,  in  ways  so  artful  as  not  to  be 
detected?  Would  you  praise  him?  Would  you- say  that  he  was 
an  expert  fellow  ?  Would  you  call  him  a  perfect  genius  ?  If  you 
should  see  a  person  sitting  on  the  corner  of  the  street,  and  somehow 
making  uncomfortable  everybody  who  went  by,  and  he  should 
laugh,  and  for  a  half  an  hour  tell  you  how  he  had  fixed  this  man, 
and  how  he  had  played  a  trick  on  that  man,  would  you  not  feel 
that  there  was  not  another  such  miscreant  in  society  ?  And  yet, 
persons  do  the  same  thing  mentally.  They  see  all  the  little  obliqui- 
ties that  there  are  in  men,  and  use  them  as  a  means  of  annoying 
them.  They  see  things  which  they  ought  not  to  see.  There  are 
many  things  in  life  which  you  ouglij:  to  be  ashamed  to  see,  and 
which,  if  you  do  see  them,  you  ought  to  pretend  not  to  see.  There 
is  an  amiable  deception  whicli  I  think  will  be  forgiven.  Do  you 
suppose  that  at  table  you  ought  to  see  all  the  things  that  happen  ? 
If  a  lady  takes  a  swallow  of  tea  before  it  is  quite  cool,  ought  you  to 
know  it  ?  Never.  A  thousand  little  things  are  happening  in  life 
which  a  proper  delicacy  would  lead  you  to  act  as  if  you  did  not  see. 
Things  are  going  on  in  life  which  should  be  hidden  as  much  as  pos- 
sible. There  is  nobody  who  has  not  a  whole  museum  of  absurdities. 
And  if  you  like  those  things,  you  can  fish  them  out.  There  is  not 
a  faculty  in  my  soul  whicli  does  not  make  itself  buffoon,  at  one  time 
or  another,  measured  by  the  higher  law.  There  is  not  a  single  at- 
tribute in  man  which  does  not  at  times  make  itself  foolish.  Suc> 
things  are  bound  \x^  in  the  nature  of  men.  They  are  a  part  of  the 
indispensable  economy  under  whicli  we  are  being  developed,  and  are 
growing  to  man's  estate.  And  ought  we  to  think  of  these  things, 
and  see  them  quickly,  and  make  them  conspicuous,  without  inquir- 
ing what  the  eifect  will  be  upon  the  welfare  ot  others  ? 

Sometimes  men's  peculiarities  are  inordinate,  are  despotic,  and 
are  the  cause  of  mischief  in  life.  Then  we  have  a  right  to  meet 
them  and  lash  them  with  ridicule.  Then  it  is  that  sarcasm  may 
be  used  like  a  surgeon's  knife.  Then  it  is  that  wit  and  humor  may 
do  a  legitimate  work  of  humanity.  But  in  the  ten  tliousand 
little  interplays  of  life,  men  should  be  amiable,  as  far  as  possible, 
and  should  see  things  that  are  sweet  and  agreeable.  If  they  see 
other  things  they  should  hide  them,  or  should  seem  not  to  see  them. 


PEACEABLE  LIVING.  317 

You  should  take  the  mantle  which  is  on  your  shoulder,  and  with  it 
cover  the  nakedness  of  your  brother,  and  not  expose  him  to  jeer 
and  ridicule. 

I  need  not  speak  of  the  malign  passions — of  envy,  and  jealousy; 
and  hatred,  and  revenge— as  they  exhibit  themselves  in  the  store,  in 
the  shop,  in  the  street,  in  the  school,  everywhere.  The  play  of 
these  baser  feelings"  among  men  is  recognized  by  all  as  morally 
wrong. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  will  mention  a  few  things  which  make 
diredtly  for  peace.  First,  let  me  speak  of  cheerfulness  and  good- 
nature. I  hardly  know  how  to  define  cheerfulness.  It  is  partly  a 
mental, and  partly  a  bodily  element.  There  are  some  who  are 
cheerful  in  a  state  of  unhealth ;  but  generally  cheerfulness  exists 
where  one  has  fulfilled  the  physical  conditions  of  health. 

Also,  there  is  usually  associated  with  it  a  mental  element  of 
courage  and  hope.  Therefore,  in  most  instances,  cheerfulness 
belongs  to  courageous  natures.  But  whether  it  belongs  to  the  one 
class  or  the  other,  whatever  may  be  its  cause,  it  is  one  of  the 
blessings  of  life,  and  yen  should  seek  it  for  yourself,  for  your 
f^jbiily?  and  for  the  community  at  large. 

If  any  man  has  springs  of  cheerfulness  and  of  good-nature  in 
him,  in  the  name  of  the  God  of  benevolence  let  him  not  stop  them 
up.  Let  him  rather  keep  them  open,  that  they  may  be  a  source  of 
joy  and  consolation  to  his  fellow  men; 

I  have  sometimes  heard  it  said  of  young  naen  that  before  they 
joined  the  church  they  were  good  fellows,  but  that  afterward  there 
was  nothius^  in  them.  It  is  because  some  men  think  that  reliijion 
consists  in  tying  up  the  natural  faculties.  On  the  contrary,  I  think 
it  consists  in  untying  them,  in  giving  them  a  wholesome  develop- 
ment, and  so  making  them  better  and  sweeter  and  larger. 

We  do  not  put  a  colt  into  the  harness  for  the  sake  of  diminish- 
ing his  power,  but  simply  for  the  sake  of  directing  it ;  and  Ave  are 
putting  the  harness  on  men,  not  to  take  away  their  power,  but  to 
organize  it  for  use,  and  make  it  more  facile.  And  in  regard  to 
good-cheer,  humor,  buoyancy  of  disposition,  hopefulness — if  a  man 
has  it  naturally,  it  is  an  inestimable  gift ;  and  religion  should  make 
it  more — not  less.  If  you  are  converted  to-day,  you  ought  to  laugh 
twice  to-day  where  you  did  once  yesterday.  If  last  month  you  were 
a  sinner,  and  were  without  hope  in  heaven,  and  still  you  were 
cheerful,  now,  if  you  are  a  Christian,  you  ought  to  have  a  cheerful- 
ness that  is  sweeter,  more  ample,  better  directed.  I  would  rather 
transmit  to  a  child  of  mine  a  clear  common-sense,  with  a  cheerful 
and  hopeful  disposition,  and  the  art  of  enjoying  things  as  he  finds 


318  PEACEABLE  LIVING. 

them,  than  to  give  him  millions  of  money,  with  coronets  and  hoiiora 
innumerable. 

The  fact  is,  we  build  our  houses  inside.  The  furniture  of  our 
houses  which  we  enjoy  is  inside.  The  riches  which  are  l)est  for 
us  are  our  constitutional  riches.  It  is  the  soul  that  makes  the 
man — not  outside  circumstances.  "  A  man's  life  consisteth  not  in 
the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possesseth." 

A  man  who  is  cheerful  can  alleviate  the  sadness  and  gloom  of  a 
whole  company  where  he  is.  One  clear,  open-hearted,  agreeable, 
cheerful,  hopeful,  courageous  nature,  is  medicine  for  a  hundred  de- 
sponding souls. 

If  God  has  given  you  a  cheerful  temperament — use  it.  Do  not 
eclipse  it,  nor  hide  it  under  a  bushel.  If  you  have  become  a  Chris- 
tian here,  understand  that  religion  in  this  place  is  a  religion  which 
carries  with  it  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  not  a  religion  that  mopes, 
and  dwells  in  melancholy. 

Gentleness  and  kindness  are  elements  of  peaceableness.  'i'he 
opportunity  for  exercising  these  elements  occurs  every  da}'  and 
everywhere. 

I  wish,  every  day,  when  you  go  to  your  morning  prayer,  instead 
of  praying  that  God  will,  for  Christ's  sake,  forgive  your  sins,  that 
he  will  guide  you  through  the  day,  that  he  will  prosper  you  in  youi 
business,  that  he  will  keep  you  from  temptation — I  wish,  instead 
of  making  these  generic,  wholesale  pi'ayers,  and  promising  tiiat  if 
God  Avill  grant  them  he  shall  have  all  the  praise  and  glory,  you 
would  make  some  specific,  retail  prayers.  Oh!  how  wholesome  it 
would  be,  if,  in  the  morning,  you  would  kneel  down  by  the  side  of 
your  bed,  and  say,  "  Thou  knowest,  0  Lord,  that  I  have  an  un- 
reasonable disposition.  Thou  knowest  that  I  am  irritable  in  my- 
self, and  ugly  toward  others.  Thou  knowest  that  I  provoke  and 
disturb  those  who  arc  around  about  me.  And  I  pray  that  thy  grace 
may  go  with  me  to-day,  and  keep  me  gentle  in  tongue  and  in 
action"!  And  at  noon  it  would  be  wholesome  to  follow  that 
prayer  by  another  of  the  same  kind.  And  at  evening  it  would  be 
wholesome  to  look  back  and  see  how  far  God  has  helped  you.  Do 
this,  and  try  it  again  and  again,  until  it  has  become  a  habit  with 
you. 

Be  gentle.  Be  easy  to  be  entreated.  That  is,  when  persona 
come  to  you  for  favors  which  are  reasonable  and  right,  do  not  let 
them  have  to  climb  up  to  the  attainment  of  them  as  a  man  would 
climb  up  a  cliff  to  find  sea-bird's  eggs — at  the  risk  of  his  life.  Be 
willing  to  be  good  and  kind  to  men. 

1  had  occasion  only  day  before  yesterday  to  ask  a  favor — nof   f'>r 


PEACEABLE  LIVING.  310 

Tnysell^  bill  for  another.  I  went  to  one  man,  and  laid  the  case  be- 
fore him.  He  Avas  reluctant.  He  surveyed  the  matter  all  round. 
He  looked  at  it  on  every  side.  He  raised  this,  that,  and  the  other 
ditlicuh}.  And  finally,  at  the  very  last  moment,  he  said,  "If  you 
eaimoi  ilo  any  better,  why,  I  will." 

I  went  to  another  man.  I  sat  down,  and  began  to  state  the  ease 
to  him.  I  had  hardly  got  five  sentences  out  before  he  said,  "  Of 
course  I  will.  Let  us  go  right  away  and  attend  to  it."  He  jumped 
right  over  me  in  his  eagerness  to  grant  the  favor.  Ah !  what  a  dif- 
ference there  is  in  the  giving  of  difierent  men! 

Some  men  are  like  chestnuts  before  the  frost  has  opened  the 
burs.  You  have  to  club  them,  and  club  them,  and  club  them,  to 
get  anything  out  of  them.  On  the  other  hand,  some  men  are  like 
chestnuts  which  have  ripened  under  the  frost.  They  ai'e  already 
opened,  and  they  rain  down  their  favors  upon  you  if  you  but  jar 
the  tree  with  your  hand. 

If  a  man  is  only  gentle  and  kind,  and  easy  to  be  entreated,  how 
much  of  peace  he  can  diffuse  among  his  fellow  men ! 

You  are  Avishing  that  you  were  an  orator.  A  man  may  be  an 
orator  and  yet  be  a  fool.  You  are  wishing  that  you  had  genius. 
A  man  may  have  genius  without  having  common  sense;  and  a 
man  might  as  well  not  be  born  as  not  to  have  common  sense.  You 
are  wishing  that  you  were  conspicuous.  God  has  given  you,  in  the 
place  where  you  are,  an  opportunity  to  do  more  toward  making  the 
world  happy,  than  you  could  do  if  he  had  made  you  conspicuous, 
if  you  are  only  hopeful,  and  cheerful,  and  gentle,  and  kind. 

This  world  is  full  of  discords  and  attritions  all  the  time.  Selfish- 
ness is  double-bladed,  and  is  continually  cutting  and  piercing  both 
ways.  There  is  conflict  and  rivalry  on  all  hands.  What  we  want, 
above  all  things,  is  peace. 

The  engineer  does  not  let  his  engines  run  without  oiling.  He 
oils  it  at  every  great  stop,  and  at  every  joint.  Oh,  that  men  could 
be  engineers  of  j)eace,  and  introduce  an  element  which  should  pre- 
vent friction  and  annoyance,  and  diminish,  from  day  to  day,  the 
attritions  of  men,  and  from  day  to  day  increase  their  comforts!  Oh, 
that  men  strove  more  to  make  those  around  about  them  cheerful, 
and  hopeful,  and  self-helpful !  Oh,  that  men  would  help  their  fel- 
lowmen,  in  order  that  they  might  help  others;  that  they  would  lend 
to  them,  in  order  that  they  might  lend  to  others;  that  they  would 
console  them,  in  order  that  they  might  console  others !  Oh,  that 
men  would  be  like  their  Father  in  heaven,  who  "muketh  his  sun  to 
rise  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and 
on  the  unjust" 


320  PEACEABLE  LIVING. 

Human  sympathy  felt  for  all  men  is  a  source  of  great  peaceable- 
ness  and  alleviation.  "We  are  told  to  "  condescend  to  men  of  low- 
estate."  But  do  not  let  men  see  you  go  down  to  them.  Let  them 
find  you  down  where  they  are,  so  that  they  shall  not  feel  that,  being 
superior  to  them,  you  took  it  into  your  mind  to  come  down  to  them. 
Men  do  not  like  to  be  patronized  in  that  way ;  and  if  you  have  a 
genuine,  kind  feeliug  toward  them,  you  will  not  hurt  their  feelings 
by  a  show  of  condescension. 

I  think  I  can  get  angry  as  quick  as  anybody.  I  do  not  think  I 
am  deficient  in  that  Christian  grace.  But  I  never  saw  a  man  yet 
■whom  I  would  not  have  compassion  for,  after  I  had  had  time  to 
think,  and  to  couple  him  with  his  ovrn  trials,  and  reflect  where  he 
came  from,  who  educated  him,  what  sort  of  a  tussle  he  has  had  in 
life,  and  what  temptations  and  provocations  he  has  been  subjected 
to.  Above  all,  if  I  look  at  it  a  little,  and  think  that  we  are  like  so 
many  insects  that  battle  in  this  world,  when  I  see  one  who  has 
failed,  fallen  down,  done  wrong,  I  think,  "  After  all,  he  is  a  man,  and 
he  has  eternity  before  him."  And  just  the  first  thought  of  these 
things  does  away  with  all  my  hatred  of  him,  and  my  heart  yearns 
toward  him.  I  cannot  keep  hot  long  enough  to  be  as  revengeful  as 
editors  and  reformers  want  to  be.  I  pity  sinners  even  when  they 
are  culprits. 

A  man  stole  my  horse  the  other  day.  If  I  had  caught  him 
within  the  first  hour  after  I  learned  that  the  deed  was  committed,  it 
would  have  fared  hard  wath  him;  but  after  I  had  had  time  to  reflect, 
I  thought,  "  Let  Lera  go."  But  I  would  travel  a  great  way  to  save 
the  man.  I  fear  that  nothing  will  save  him;  but  I  am  very  sorry  for 
him.  I  think  that  I  could  sit  down  by  his  side  and  talk  to  him  as 
if  he  were  a  brother.  I  yearn  after  the  manhood  that  is  in  him 
I  think  of  the  immortality  which  lies  around  and  beyond  it. 

I  am  not  so  anxious  about  the  evils  of  my  fellowmen  as  I  am 
about  that  which  is  yet  to  come.  What  I  think  of,  is  that  growth 
which  shall  bring  my  fellowmen  into  another  life,  free  from  the 
temptations  of  this,  and  cleansed  from  all  bodily  hindrances  and 
shackles.  My  hope  is  that  he  may  stand  there  so  difierently  that  I 
shall  not  know  him  as  I  do  in  the  flesh. 

There  is  a  sympathy  that  we  feel  for  the  humanity  that  is  in 
men,  which  enables  us  to  make  allowance  for  them  on  account  of 
their  circumstances  and  conditions.  And  it  is  one  of  the  fruits  of 
Christianity.  Otherwise,  how  could  God  think  of  us  and  pity  us. 
We  are  taught  that  there  is  a  divine  sympathy  with  men,  and  that 
God  can  look  upon  them  with  allowance;  and  we  are  exhorted  to  be 
of  the  same  spirit ;  and  as  soon  as  we  are,  there  will  be  very  little 
necessity  for  clasliings. 


PEACEABLE  LIVINGf.  321 

Let  mc  give  a  few  other  simple  directions  for  keeping  the  peace. 
One  is,  Hold  your  tongue.  Tliere  are  more  quarrels  smothered  by- 
just  shutting  your  mouth,  and  holding  it  shut,  than  by  all  the  wis- 
dom in  the  world.  You  may  be  obliged  to  speak ;  you  may  be  a 
mother  or  father  and  have  to  scold  your  children ;  you  may  be  a 
teacher,  and  feel  called  upon  to  rebuke,  with  all  long-suffering,  and 
with  suffering  that  is  not  so  long  sometimes ;  but  ordinarily,  in 
common  life,  more  than  two-thirds  of  all  the  things  which  come  up 
for  remark,  had  better  be  let  alone.     Just  hold  your  tongue. 

The  old  Greeks  said  that  a  man  had  two  ears  and  one  mouth, 
tlfat  he  might  hear  twice  and  speak  once ;  and  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  good  sense  in  it.  You  will  find  that  if  you  will  simply  hold  your 
peace,  you  will  pass  over  nine  out  of  ten  of  the  provocations  of 
lifo. 

"  But  what  if  men  say  and  do  things  so  provoking  that  you  can- 
not hold  your  tongue  ?"     Then,  above  all  things,  hold  it! 

Closely  allied  to  this  direction  for  keeping  the  peace,  is  another, 
which  is,  Ld  things  alone.  Do  not  meddle  with  things.  Do  not 
pick  at  them.  You  can  make  an  ulcer  out  of  a  pimple,  if  you  will 
only  pick  it  enough.  All  that  is  necessary  is,  just  to  pick  it.  Leave 
things  to  themselves.  When  things  happen,  do  not  talk  about 
ihem.  Keep  quiet  about  them  in  the  family.  Do  not  tell  anybody 
about  them.  If  things  happen  in  the  neighborhood,  do  not  try  to 
settle  them.  The  Lord  deliver  me  from  those  Don  Quixote  settlers 
of  troubles  who  go  about  the  neighborhood  fanning  to  a  flame 
things  that  would  die  of  themselves,  if  let  alone.  The  majority  of 
troubles  in  life  are  like  single  sparks.  If  you  let  them  remain  single, 
they  will  very  soon  go  out,  and  nothing  will  be  left  but  ashes — and 
ashes  burn  nobody ;  but  if  to  a  spark  you  put  some  kindling  stuff, 
and  blow  it,  you  will  soon  have  a  flame.  The  little  troubles  of  life, 
which  are  of  daily  occurrence,  and  of  which  there  are  so  many,  are 
to  be  let  alone. 

"You  know  that  So-and-So  has  done  so-and-so:  what  do  you. 
think  Ave  had  better  do  about  it?"  Nothing.  Let  it  alone.  "  You 
are  aware  that  So-and-So  has  been  going  about  fixing  things  in  this 
way :  What  do  you  think  we  had  better  do  about  it  ?"  Nothing. 
There  are  two  plasters  that  Avill  cure  ninety-nine  sores  in  a  hun 
dred — silence,  and  letting  them  alone.  This  is  particularly  so  in 
the  household,  in  the  shop,  and  in  other  places  where  men  are 
brought  near  to  each  other. 

I  might  indulge  in  some  strong  remarks  on  the  subject  of  those 
who  adojit  the  contrary  course — talebearers,  who  carry  and  fetch, 
and  are  like  dogs  that  in  summer  days  you  will  see  Ayith  a  stick  iu 


322  PEACEABLE  LIVING. 

their  mouth,  running  here  and  there  with  sportive  boys.  I  have 
seen  persons  who  forever  had  rnischievous  tales  in  their  mouth  which 
they  were  carrying  hither  and  thither.  They  ought  to  be  employed 
in  the  devil's  post-office;  they  ought  to  be  common  carriers  of  vile 
trash — and  they  are.  They  are  distributing  the  devil's  hillet-doux 
throughout  their  neighborhood. 

A  dove  would  sit  on  a  tree,  on  the  gable  of  a  house,  or  on  some 
peak,  for  weeks  and  months,  and  never  know  that  there  was  any- 
thing decaying  in  all  the  valley  beneath  him;  but  a  turkey-buzzard 
would  not  sit  there  three  minutes  before  he  would  see  something 
dying.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  in  the  nature  of  birds*— 
and  of  men.  There  are  men  who  are  always  seeing  something, 
always  smelling  something,  always  hearing  something.  And  the 
moment  they  hear,  they  diffuse.  They  carry  abroad  what  they 
hear. 

In  our  homes  we  suppress  disagreeable  things — we  suppress 
stenches.  No  person  who  has  ordinary  decency  fails  to  do  this. 
It  is  only  in  respect  to  the  excretions  of  the  soul  that  men  run 
about  making  themselves  nasty  carriers  of  nasty  things  for  nasty 
purposes.  Where  there  is  no  tale-bearer,  contention  ceases.  "Where 
there  is  no  fuel,  the  fire  goes  out. 

You  may  say,  "Is  not  this  line  of  instruction  contrary  to 
Scripture  ?  For  instance,  does  not  James  say,  '  First  pure,  then 
peaceable '  ?"  I  have  heard  that  quoted  so  long  that  I  thiruk  it 
worth  while  to  read  it.  One  would  really  think  that  no  one  had 
any  right  to  be  peaceable  until  everybody  and  everything  was  pure. 
Is  a  man  up  for  heresy?  People  say,  "Let  him  alone.  Do  not  dis- 
turb him.  He  means  right.  Time  will  help  him.  He  will  go 
right  by  and  by."  "Ah!  but,"  says  some  old  hound  that  runs 
down  heresy,  "  does  not  the  Word  of  God  say,  '  First  pure,  then 
peaceable ' ?" 

Here  is  a  man  who  has  stolen  a  little.  He  did  not  do  it  in  the 
right  way,  and  so  he  was  caught.  The  people  are  down  on  him, 
and  are  going  to  make  an  example  of  him.  But  some  one  stops 
them,  and  says,  "  Do  not  destroy  the  young  man,  for  this  his  first 
or  second  fault.  Save  him.  It  is  better  to  reform  him,  if  possible, 
than  to  destroy  him.  There  is  nothing  which  answers  the  ends  of 
justice  like  reformation."  "  But,  ah  !"  says  some  old  man  who  goes 
in  for  punishing  wrong-doers,  "  '  First  pure,  then  peaceable.'  Let 
him  give  evidence  of  reformation,  and  he  may  be  spared.  Other- 
wise, let  him  feel  the  lash." 

Let  us  see  what  is  said  here : 
•'  But  the  wisdom  that  is  from  above  is  first  pure,  then  peaceable,  gentle, 


PEACEABLE  LIVING.  823 

and  easy  to  l)e  entreated,  full  of  mercy  and  good  fruits,  without  parvialifcy, 
and  without  hypocrisy." 

It  is  not  speakuig  about  conduct.  It  is  simply  speaking  of  that 
inspiration  wiiich  comes  from  good.  Then  it  enumerates  the  differ- 
ent steps  not  in  the  order  of  cause  and  effect  at  all,  nor  in  the  order 
of  a  bill  of  items,  nor  as  I  would  say,  "  I  shall  open  my  subject  by 
showing  so  and  so."  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  here  priority  is 
determined  at  all.  James  says,  "First  pure,  then  peaceable."  He 
might  just  as  well  have  said,  "First  peaceable,  then  pure."  Or, 
he  might  have  said,  "First  gentle,  then  peaceable,  and  then 
pure."  It  is  simply  a  recapitulation.  It  is  not  a  philosophical 
statement,  observing  a  given  order  of  causation. 

"  The  wisdom  that  is  from  above  is  first  pure,  then  peaceable." 
It  is  not  meant  to  be  understood  that  a  man  must  not  be  peaceable 
until  he  is  pure.  If  that  were  the  case,  quarrelsome  men  would  ex- 
cuse themselves  as  not  responsible,  saying,  "I  am  not  pure  yet; 
and  the  command  is  that  I  must  be  first  pure  and  then  peaceable." 
Such  an  interpretation  of  this  passage  would  open  the  doors  of  uni- 
versal indulgence  and  "icense.  The  text  is  a  mis-quoted  one.  We 
are  to  be  peaceable  for  the  sake  of  purity,  as  well  as  pure  for  the  sake 
of  peace.  It  works  both  ways.  We  are  to  be  gentle  for  the  sake  of 
peaceableness,  as  well  as  peaceable  for  the  sake  of  gentleness.  The 
two  things  are  interchangeable. 

Once  more.  How  much  better  it  is  to  be  under  the  benison  of 
God,  and  inherit  the  blessings  Avhich  have  been  pronounced  on 
peace-makers,  than  have  the  remunerations  which  those  men  receive 
who  live  to  irritate  their  fellowmen,  and  to  fill  human  life  with 
spines  and  prickles. 

I  am  sorry  for  this  weeping  and  groaning  old  world  which  rolls 
around  as  though  it  were  set  to  perform  a  requiem  in  the  universe 
by  day  and  by  night.  It  is  sad  to  think  of  the  depths  of  the  human 
troubles,  and  mistakes,  and  stumblings,  and  overthrows,  and  de- 
structions, which  are  going  on  throughout  the  earth. 

I  sit,  at  eventide,  and  look  over  on  yonder  city,  with  its  myriad 
lights  scattered  along  the  shore,  which  appear  like  the  eyes  of 
watching  dragons  ;  and  I  think,  "  If  all  those  houses  were  uncov- 
ered, and  I  could  look  into  them,  would  I  see  more  chambers  of 
gladness  and  joyfulness,  or  more  of  sadness,  and  sorrow,  and  heart- 
aching,  and  disappointment  and  excited  desires  ungratified  ?'  That 
great  city  is  a  smothering  reservoir  of  human  suffering,  as  well  as 
of  human  aspiration  and  enjoyment ;  and  the  whole  world  groans 
and  travails  in  pain  until  now. 

But  blessed  are  the  peacemakers.     Blessed  is  every  man  who  car- 


324  PEACEABLE  LIVING. 

ries  himself  as  the  miguouette  carries  itself,  homely  and  small,  but 
with  more  fragrance  than  it  can  keep,  filling  the  air  with  sweetness, 
and  rejoicing  every  man  who  passes  by.  A  Christian  man,  though 
he  be  humble  and  inconspicuous,  like  the  mignonette,  should  be 
full  of  the  fragrance  of  love  and  gentleness  and  peace.  Or,  if  he 
be  more  aspiring,  let  him  be  as  the  honeysuckle,  that  never  climbs 
so  high  that  it  forgets  to  blossom,  and  never  blossoms  so  high  that 
it  cannot  send  down  fragrance  in  showers  to  the  low-lying  creatures 
beneath  it.  Whether  you  be  high  or  low,  let  there  be  enough  of 
the  influence  of  God  shed  abroad  in  your  heart  for  you  and  for 
those  around  about  you.  So  shall  you  be  children  of  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven. 

This  is  better  than  worldly  logic.  It  is  better  than  the  decrees 
of  authority.  It  is  better  now,  it  will  be  better  through  life,  and  it 
will  be  more  satisfying  in  the  dying  hour.  You  will  never,  in  the 
morning  of  the  resurrection,  be  sorry  for  any  tear  that  you  have 
wiped  away ;  you  will  never  be  sorry  for  any  aspiration  that  you 
have  excited ;  you  will  never  be  sorry  for  any  kindness  that  you 
have  done ;  you  will  never  be  sorry  for  any  blow  that  you  have 
withheld  ;  you  will  never  be  sorry  for  any  bitter  word  unuttered ; 
you  will  never  be  sorry  for  refraining  from  those  things  which  open 
graves  in  men's  souls ;  you  will  never  be  sorry  that  you  lived 
peaceably  with  all  men,  though  you  will  be  sorry  if  you  have  quar- 
reled with  any  man. 

May  God  grant  that  we  may  be  His  children,  and  so  love  peace. 


PBAOHABLE  Livnra.  325 


PEAYEK  BEFOEE  THE  SERMON. 

We  draw  near  to  thee,  our  Father,  remembering  the  mercies  of  past  days. 
Thou  art  not  to  us  only  what  thou  art  made  known  to  be  in  thy  Word, 
Thou  hast  translated  thyself  unto  our  experience,  and  the  meaning  of  thy 
word  we  have  found  out  in  our  Father's  house  and  by  the  way.  Through 
life,  in  sorrow,  in  anguish  of  heart,  in  prosperity,  in  crowning  joys,  we 
have  discerned  thee.  Thou  hast  given  us  glimpses  of  thyself  through 
ever}"  opening  experience  of  our  lives ;  and  as  thou  bast  been  our  fathers' 
God,  so  hast  thou  been  our  God.  Thou  hast  been  the  God  of  the  patriarch* 
and  of  the  prophet,  and  of  the  martyr;  and  yet,  thou  hast  made  thyself 
nearer  to  us  than  thou  dost  seem  when  we  read  of  thee  in  them.  Thou  hast 
walked  with  us.  We  have  communed  with  thee.  Thou  hast  tenderly 
upheld  us  in  our  weakness.  Thou  hast  comforted  us  in  our  sorrows.  Thou 
hast  made  the  invisible  space  around  about  us  populous.  Thou  hast  built  up  in 
our  imagination,  and  caused  to  glow  with  all  things  which  are  to  be  desired, 
the  home,  the  heaven,  which  thou  hast  promised  us.  Thou  hast  granted  us 
some  sense  of  the  mystery  of  godliness,  and  some  sense  of  the  majesty  of 
God  ;  and  our  thoughts  have  been  pilgrims  through  the  mighty  realm  where 
thou  art;  and  though,  by  searching,  we  canuotflnd  thee  out  to  perfection, 
we  have  discerned  thee.  As  they  that  look  upon  the  mountains  cannot  see 
all  that  is  in  them,  nor  the  whole  range  thereof,  so  have  we  not  found  thee 
out;  and  yet  we  have  (explored  thy  nature,  and  learned  truly  that  which  we 
know.  We  have  discerned  dimly  where  point  after  point  thou  dost  recede 
toward  the  infinite  and  the  eternal ;  and  we  rejoice  in  that  which  we  know, 
and  in  the  overhanging  glory  of  that  which  we  discern  faintly,  and  in  the 
faith  of  that  which  is  unknown,  and  which  will  yet  to  us  transcend  in  beanty 
all  that  now  we  can  frame  or  fashion  by  our  imagination.  For  thou  art  not 
less  than  an  earthly  father  or  an  earthly  mother.  Thy  glory  is  not  less  than 
the  glory  of  an  earthly  potentate.  Thoii  dost  lift  thyself  up  in  eternal  excel- 
lence far  beyond  anything  which  man  can  kindle  or  know.  And  we  shall 
not  be  disappointed.  Thy  tenderness  will  be  more  exquisite  than  we  think. 
Thy  gentleness  will  transcend  all  the  measures  which  we  have  of  gentleness 
among  men.  Thine  infinite  goodness,  thine  all-conquering  love,  the  sweet- 
ness of  thy  personal  presence,  the  glory,  the  beauty  of  that  estate  into  which 
thou  wilt  bring  us,  the  nobleness  of  thy  friendship,  thy  converse— there  is 
nothing  that  eye  hath  seen,  or  that  ear  hath  heard,  or  that  it  hath  entered 
into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive,  which  can  be  compared  to  these  things. 
We  lielieve  that  they  exist,  though  we  do  not  know  exactly  what  they  are. 
And  we  rejoice  in  them. 

O  Lord,  we  desire  to  be  made  more  and  more  the  recipients  of  that 
faith  by  which  we  discern  invisible  things,  and  perceive  that  things  which 
are  not  shall  overcome  things  which  are.  The  noise  of  life,  its  strifes 
and  its  cares,  are  too  much  for  us.  As  a  mirror  is  dimmed  by  the  breath 
of  him  who  looks  into  it  all  day  long,  so  we  are  shadowed  by  onr  very 
duties.  We  are  overcast  by  things  which  are  good  as  well  as  by  things 
which  are  evil.  We  are  warped,  biased.  We  cannot  endure  trouble  and 
defeat  as  men  in  God  should.  Nor  can  we  stand  in  the  lilandishments 
of  prosperity  as  firmlj"  and  securely  as  we  ought.  We  are  walking  through 
a  desert  laud,  pilgrims  and  strangers,  discouraged,  at  times,  by  short  day 
journeys.  We  are  easily  ove»coino  by  weariness.  We  are  overborne  by 
despondency  in  the  midst  of  discomforts.  But,  O  Lord  our  God,  thou  com- 
fortest  u^,  an  i  thou  wilt  unto  the  end.  We  rejoice  that  we  are  not  shut  up 
to  perfeetiuQ  as  the  condition  of  thy  sympathy  and  thy  love.    W<!  rejoice 


32 G  pi: A  CITABLE  LIVING. 

that  we  are  conscious  that  thou  hast  made  us,  and  that  we  are  under  a  provi- 
dence which  is  shaping  us,  and  that  thou  knowest  what  we  are,  and  that  not- 
withstanding our  weakness  and  sinfulness  thou  art  not  discoui"aged  concern- 
ing us.  Thou  art  not  weary  of  thy  charge.  Tliou  art  not  surprized  at  anything 
whicli  we  do.  Thou  knowest  that  we  are  babes,  and  more  patient  art  thou 
with  us  than  the  nurse  is  with  the  child.  Thou  knewest  our  imperfections 
in  the  beginning,  and  more  generous  and  lenient  art  thou  with  us  than  a 
mother  is  Avith  her  little  one. 

Now,  Lord,  we  desire,  over  against  thine  infinite  lenity,  thy  waiting 
patience,  thy  long-suffering  and  loving  kindness,  to  raise  up  some  sense  of 
obligation  in  ourselves — some  gratitude — some  exhibition  of  love  and  thank- 
lulness — something  that  shall  show  us  that  the  sun  has  shined,  and  has 
brought  out  some  things  that  grow,  and  have  beauty,  and  bear  fruit.  Be 
pleased  to  grant  that  we  may  be  filled  with  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  and  that 
we  may  more  and  more  abound  in  them,  and  that  thine  eye  may  be  delighted, 
and  that  men  around  about  us  may  be  cheered  and  comforted  by  the  work 
which  is  wrought  in  us  by  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God. 

We  ask  for  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins,  knowing  that  they  are  already 
forgiven.  We  ask  for  the  continuance  of  thy  gracious  presence,  knowing 
assuredly  that  thou  wilt  continue  to  be  with  us.  The  sun  shall  rise  and  set 
before  thou  forgcttest  those  who  are  under  thy  care.  We  pray  for  thy 
divine  compassion,  knovriug  that  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so,  already, 
the  Lord  pitieth  those  who  fear  him.  And  yet,  thou  hast  made  it  sweet  for 
us  to  ask  even  for  invisible  thirJgs.  Thou  hast  made  it  a  blessed  thing  to  take 
thy  favors,  perfumed  with  thy  sense  of  our  naed,  and  with  thy  forethought 
iu  giving  that  which  we  desire.  We  would  be  roceiitaeles  of  thine  influence. 
As  the  sun  shines  in  the  dewdroji  according  to  its  measvire,  so  shine  in  us. 
Fill  the  whole  of  our  little  orbs  with  thy  presence,  so  that  thy  life  shall  aug- 
ment ours,  and  sustain  it.  And  day  by  day  may  we  walk  with  God,  until 
by  and  by  the  welcome  and  joyful  word  shall  come  flying  to  us,  borne  by 
angel  messengers.  Thy  father  hath  sent  for  thee.  And  then  may  all  the  love 
of  children  be  awaked  in  us,  and  by  faith  and  confidence  may  we  with  cheer 
exchange  thuigs  which  are  seen  for  things  that  are  unseen,  knowing  that 
God,  by  his  angelic  missengers  vrill  convoy  us  safely,  and  bring  us  home  to 
the  land  which  we  have  longer',  for,  to  Jesus  the  Mediator  of  the  New  Cove- 
nant, to  the  Almighty  Piither,  and  to  the  aU-quickening  Spirit. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  the  praise  of  our  sal- 
vation forever  and  ever.    Amen. 


PEAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  us, 
and  upon  all  the  truths  which  we  have  pondered.  May  they  not  fall  upon 
the  ovxtward  ear  alone.  May  we  have  some  thought  of  improvement.  May 
we  begin,  to-day,  in  some  respects,  to  live  better  and  higher  than  we 
have  lived  before.  Fill  us  with  that  divine  Spirit  by  which  we  have  been 
redeemed,  and  bv  which  we  are  living  from  day  to  day,  though  with  mani- 
fest imperfections  and  sins.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  l>ind  us  to  each  other 
by  th(^  corfis  of  sympathy  and  of  kindly  affection.  We  pray  that  pride  may 
be  chastened,  that  obstinacy  may  be  taken  away,  that  every  evil  and  malign 
})assion  may  be  subdued,  and  that  thy  grace  may  reign  triuuiphant  in  every 
heart.    We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 


XVIII. 

The  Law  of  Liberty. 


INVOCATION. 

We  draw  near  to  thee  by  our  heart,  O  Father !  Thy  love  is  omnipotent 
In  thee  we  have  infinite  hope;  and  out  of  thee  none.  For  while  thou  art 
governing  things  mauimate  by  thy  right  hand,  thou  art  governing  us  by  thy 
thoughts  of  love  and  mercy.  We  are  not  beasts  that  perish.  We  are  the 
sons  of  God.  And  we  come  home,  this  morning,  to  thee ;  and  thou  needest 
no  persuasion,  only  that  we  should  recognize  thy  hand  and  loving  mercy 
and  open  our  hearts  in  faith,  and  take  the  bounties  which  are  already  pre- 
pared for  us.  Shine  forth,  O  Holy  Spirit  of  light  and  comfort.  Smile  be- 
nignly. Eternal  Father— God  of  all  love— Saviour— our  Elder  Brother  and 
nearest  Friend,  by  the  understanding  of  whom  we  understand  all  the  rest. 
Give  us,  this  morning,  the  tokens  of  thy  presence  and  of  thine  interest  in  us. 
And  so  may  we  know  that  we  are  heard  and  accepted  by  the  inward  draw- 
ing of  our  souls  God-ward  to-day.  Bless  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  our 
joy  one  with  another,  and  our  sweet  fellowship  in  Christian  liberty.  Bless, 
we  pray  thee,  the  services  of  instruction,  and  the  oiferings  of  devotion.  May 
all  the  services  of  thine  house,  and  of  our  houses,  be  acceptable  in  thy  sight, 
O  Lord,  our  Strength  and  our  Redeemer.    Amen. 

18. 


THE  LAW  OE  LIBEETY. 


"  ?< .  nd  fast,  therefore,  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free, 
and  Oo  Qot  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of  bondage."  "But  if  ye  be  led 
of  the  t  pirit,  ye  are  not  under  the  law." — Gai.  V.  1, 18. 


There  are  two  kinds  of  lawless  people — those  who  are  under  the 
law,  and  those  who  are  above  the  law.  The  one  class  are  a  very 
bad  sort  of  people,  and  the  other  are  the  very  best  sort.  A  man 
who  is  under  the  law,  and  lawless,  is  thoroughly  wicked.  A  man 
who  is  above  the  law,  and  lawless,  because  he  has  already  incorpor- 
ated into  his  own.  nature  the  tendencies  which  the  law  was  set  to 
produce,  is  nearly  perfect.  Relatively  he  is  perfect.  To  be  under 
the  law'is  a  condition  which  is  destructive  of  liberty.  It  is  rebel- 
lious, disorganizing,  and  so,  pain-producing.  To  be  above  the  law 
in  a  sense  of  more  than  obeying  it — in  the  sense  of  super-obedience 
— is  joy-producing,  ennobling,  perfecting.  The  liberty  which  comes 
from  the  flesh,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term,  is  pro- 
nounced sensual  or  devilish  ;  but  there  is  a  liberty  which  transcends 
that  immeasurably  in  scope  and  privilege.    This  is  divine. 

What  is  freedom  ?  If  I  were  to  put  the  question  at  large,  most 
men  would  say,  perhaps,  "  Well,  it  is  the  permission  or  power  to  do 
as  you  have  a  mind  to."  That  is  it.  That  is  true.  It  is  doing  as 
we  have  a  mind  to.  But  doing  as  they  have  a  mind  to  brings  men 
into  the  most  degrading  bondage.  How  is  that?  The  men  who 
are  always  doing  as  tlicy  have  a  miud  to  are  men  who  are  forever 
knocking  against  difficulties,  getting  into  troubles,  coming  under 
arrests  for  violations  of  law  and  public  sentiment,  and  destroying 
the  peace  of  their  own  minds. 

Says  one,  "You  educate  people  not  to  do  as  they  have  a  mind 
to,  and  yet  you  say  that  the  highest  idea  of  liberty  is  to  do  just 
that."  I  do.  Our  highest  personal  liberty  consists  in  our  doing 
as  we  have  a  mind  to.  "  Does  not  the  definition  lack  something 
of  clearness,  then  ?"     It  docs.     There  is  something  left  out,  or  not 

SCNDAT  MoRNiNO,  May  28,  1872.   LESSON :  MATT.  XI.   Htains  (Plymouth  CoUectloiO 

Nob.  5u1,  coo,  701. 


830  TEE  LA  W  OF  LIBEBTY. 

added.  "And  what  is  that?"  Let  us  come  to  a  better  undeistand- 
ing  of  it  by  some  reading  of  life — by  some  familiar  illustrations. 

Consider  how  many  laws  there  are  which  aflFect  a  man's  body — 
the  laws  of  light ;  the  laws  of  heat ;  the  laws  of  gravitation ;  the 
law  of  sleep  ;  the  law  of  food ;  the  law  of  digestion  with  reference  to 
food  ;  the  law  of  exercise ;  and  scores  innumerable  of  other  laws. 

When  men  are  yet  young  and  inexperienced,  and  have  no  one 
to  teach  them,  how  perpetually  they  are  getting  themselves  into 
trouble  because  they  violate  these  laws !  They  have  no  mind  to 
keep  them;  and  so  they  are  all  the  time  gashed,  or  burnt,  or 
suffering  from  sickness,  or  undergoing  various  annoyances.  They 
are  in  bondage  because  of  these  laws.  But  as  they  learn  more  per- 
fectly, so  that  they  use  their  eyes  according  to  the  law  of  light,  and 
their  ears  according  to  the  law  of,  sound,  and  their  mouth  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  health  ;  selecting  their  food,  doing  such  and  sucli 
a  thing  because  the  law  requires  it,  and  rejecting  such  and  such  a 
thing  because  the  law  forbids  it — then  they  are  set  free  from  these 
trials — then  they  grow  out  of  a  state  of  bondage  into  a  state  of 
liberty. 

Children  have  to  think  about  a  thousand  things  which  tliey  for- 
get when  they  become  men.  The  little  child,  when  it  begins  to 
walk,  has  not  learned  to  take  a  single  step.  It  has  to  think  where 
it  shall  put  this  foot,  and  where  it  shall  put  that,  and  has  to  poise 
itself  carefully,  and  use  its  mind  as  well  as  its  body.  But  a  man 
walks  without  thinking.  What  is  the  difference  ?  One  is  under 
the  law — has  not  learned  it — is  yet  subject  to  it;  the  other  has 
learned  it  so  perfectly  that  he  is  emancipated  from  it.  The  man 
does  automatically,  what  it  requires  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  child 
to  do.  The  child  is  in  bondage,  and  the  man  is  free,  because  the 
child  does  not  keep  the  law,  and  the  man  does. 

Those  laws  that  touch  the  body  are  relative,  in  a  certain  degree, 
to  each  man  ;  and  yet,  they  are  generically  alike.  That  which  is  a 
violation  of  law  in  one  man  may  not  be  so  in  another.  Take  the 
law  of  sleep.  Men  are  so  differently  constituted  that  in  the  same 
act  one  man  violates  that  law,  and  another  man  does  not.  There 
are  some  men  who  must  have  eiglit  hours  sleep  in  twenty-four ;  and 
there  are  others  who  do  not  need  more  than  five  or  six  hours 
sleep  in  twenty-four.  There  is  a  relativity  in  these  matters.  There 
are  some  laws  that  touch  men  differently.  And  yet,  all  men  are 
subject  to  these  laws.  He  that  violates  the  laws  of  his  physical 
organs  is  at  once  pursued,  arrested,  convicted,  condemned  and 
punished,  by  that  nature  of  things  which  we  call  the  necessity  of 
material  law.    A  man,  in  short,  is  treated  as  a  prisoner,  and  re- 


THE  LAW  OF  LIBERTY.  331 

strained  of  his  liberty,  if  he  does  not  obey  natural  laws  in  their 
various  degrees,  according  to  their  relative  importance.  And,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  that  intelligently  accepts,  and  heartily  obeys 
known  natural  laws,  has  health,  and  good  spirits,  and  vital  buoy- 
ancy, and  joy,  and  a  largeness  of  liberty.  The  man  who  is  con- 
stantly rubbing  and  galling  against  the  law,  is  under  the  law  ;  but 
the  man  who  is  thoroughly  cognizant  of  the  requisitions  of  the 
law,  and  obeys  them,  is  above  the  law,  and  is  free.  Por,  what  is 
the  law,  as  respects  man,  but  that  which  God  thought  of  when  he 
meant  to  make  the  most  of  a  man  under  his  circumstances  ? 

The  way  to  become  that  which  God  had  in  his  mind  in  making 
us  is,  to  follow  his  laws.  By  following  them  it  is  that  we  come  to 
the  fullness  of  ourselves.  The  way  toward  largeness  is  not  to  rebel 
against  law,  but  to  follow  the  indications  of  it.  He  who  has  ac- 
cepted law, — who  has  conformed  his  life  to  it, — who  has  made  it,  in 
some  sense,  a  part  of  his  own  will,  does  just  as  he  has  a  mind  to, 
because  he  has  a  mind  to  do  just  as  he  ought  to.  A  man  who  is 
ignorant  of  eating  and  drinking  has  a  mind  to  eat  and  drink 
everything  that  is  put  before  him ;  and  he  has  time  to  repent 
of  it  afterwards.  But  when  a  man  is  thoroughly  instructed  in  re- 
gard to  eating  and  drinking,  and  is  familiar  with  the  laws  of  health, 
and  has  learned  to  conform  to  them,  he  sits  down  to  a  bountiful 
table,  and  he  also  eats  as  he  has  a  mind  to ;  but  he  has  a  mind  to 
eat  only  things  that  are  good  for  him.  In  both  cases  men  do  as 
they  like ;  but  in  one  case  it  leads  into  trouble,  and  in  the  other 
case  it  lifts  above  all  trouble.  Obedience  to  natural  law  is  lib- 
erty ;  and  it  is  the  only  liberty  that  a  man  has  in  this  world. 

But  this  does  not  quite  bring  out  the  truth  which  is  involved  in 
this  subject ;  so  we  shall  have  to  keep  reading  the  book  of  experi- 
ence and  nature.  It  is  not  enough  to  accept  a  law  of  voluntary 
obedience.  No  man  knows  anything  well  so  long  as  he  thinks 
about  it.  No  man  can  do  anything  perfectly  so  long  as  he  wills  to 
do  it,  with  conscious  volition.  No  man  is  perfect  until  he  comes  to 
the  point  of  unconscious,  automatic,  involuntary  activity.  Habit 
is  the  hint  of  perfection,  where  it  is  habit  in  right  things,  and  on 
right  principles.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to  say  every  morn- 
ing, in  respect  to  the  laws  of  health,  "What  are  they?"  and  to 
think  about  them  all  day  long,  and  to  strive  against  temptation, 
and  overcome  it  feebly  by  obedience.  When  he  does  that,  he  is  in 
the  first  stage — the  battle  stage — the  stage  of  the  cross — the  stage  of 
the  yoke  and  the  burden.  No  man  has  reached  obedience  to  law 
until  he  has  gone  through  that  stage,  and  learned  to  obey  with  such 
facility  and  perfection  that  he  does  it  without  knowing  it. 


332  TEE  LA  W  OF  LIBEETT. 

If  I  step  upon  a  little  bit  of  plank — a  joist,  for  instance— in  tlie 
street,  to  avoid  a  muddy  place  on  the  sidewalk,  I  walk  along  over 
it  without  thinking.  I  can  walk  on  that  joist,  which  is  only  four 
inches  wide,  as  well  as  I  can  on  the  rest  of  the  pavement ;  and  I  have 
not  a  thought  about  it.  But  put  that  joist  between  two  towers,  a 
hundred  feet  high  in  the  air,  stretch  it  across  from  one  to  the  other, 
and  make  it  as  tense  and  taut  as  you  please,  and  let  me  be  called 
upon  to  walk  over.  The  least  misstep  would  plunge  me  to  the 
ground  and  kill  me  instantly.  I  begin  to  think  what  it  is  that  I 
am  called  upon  to  do.  And  the  moment  I  begin  to  think,  I  cannot 
do  it.  I  will  not  venture  on  that  plank  because  the  consciousness 
of  what  might  happen  renders  it  unsafe  for  me  to  do  it.  When  you 
try  to  do  a  thing,  you  cannot  do  it  as  well  as  when  you  do  it  with- 
out trying. 

There  are  ministers  here  to-day  who  have  oftentimes  tried  to 
make  a  great  sermon,  and  failed ;  and  who  have  oftentimes  made 
a  great  sermon  when  they  did  not  try.  When  they  thought 
that  they  would  do  their  best  they  have  done  their  poorest ;  and 
sometimes  they  have  done  their  best  when  they  did  not  think  of 
doing  it.  Familiar  knowledge  and  habitude  brought  them  to  an 
automatic  state,  in  which  they  could  do  things  which  they  were  un- 
able to  do  by  a  special  effort.  It  is  conformable  to  law,  that  when 
we  set  out  to  do  something  great  we  do  not  do  it. 

A  person  who  is  unbred  and  unaccustomed  to  society,  going  into 
company,  never  behaves  well.  Why  ?  Because  he  instantly  begins 
to  think,  "  How  shall  I  enter  that  door  ?  Which  way  shall  I  go  ? 
How  shall  I  stand  ?  What  shall  I  do  with  my  hands  ?"  The  mo- 
ment he  thinks  about  his  hands,  and  his  feet,  and  the  posture  that 
he  ovight  to  take,  and  what  he  shall  say,  he  is  awkward  and  clumsy. 
People  say  that  he  is  green — not  ripe.  But  see  a  person  who  is  ac- 
customed to  society.  How  naturally  he  enters!  How  quietly  he 
moves!  How  unconscious  he  is  of  himself !  He  stands  gracefully. 
His  hands  are  posed  easily.  He  talks  naturally  and  pleasantly.  He 
knows  what  is  proper,  and  does  it  without  thinking.  He  has  known 
it  so  long  that  he  has  forgotten  it.  The  knowledge  of  it  has  en- 
tered into  his  unconscious  volition.  We  breathe  without  thinking 
of  it  unless  something  turns  our  attention  to  it. 

Now  the  mind  can  be  brought  to  a  state  in  which  it  will  per- 
form the  great  majority  of  its  actions  just  so  automatically — that  is 
to  say,  without  the  conscious  exertion  of  the  will,  just  as  one 
breathes  without  conscious  volition. 

Let  me  make  a  few  illustrations  in  three  ranges — that  of  the 
body,  that  of  the  lower  forms  of  the  mind,  and  that  of  the  moral 
realm ;  for  on  this  idea  turn  very  important  considerations. 


TEE  LA  W  OF  LIBERTY.  333 

When  a  soldier  goes  from  the  farm  a  histy  young  fellow,  vrell 
built,  but  bent  from  holding  the  plow  and  the  like,  he  has  a 
careless  manner  of  handling  himself;  and  he  is  placed  under 
drill ;  and  the  sergeant  puts  him  through  the  postures.  It  is 
exceedingly  awkward  for  him,  at  first,  to  bring  heel  to  heel,  and  to 
stand  straight,  without  hooping  either  way,  and  get  his  body  into  a 
right  line.  He  has  to  think  about  himself  before  and  behind,  up 
and  down,  and  he  looks  very  gawky.  It  is  very  hard  for  him 
to  conform  to  tlie  rule  of  bringing  the  palms  of  his  hands  to  the 
front,  and  his  fingers  to  the  seams  of  his  pantaloons.  And  he  does 
not  know  what  to  do  with  his  shoulders.  He  stands  as  thousrh 
he  had  a  spit  run  through  him,  and  he  were  trussed  for  roasting. 
It  is  very  difficult  for  him  when  he  begins  to  take  the  steps  and 
march  in  time.  Every  single  conformity  to  his  instructions  requires 
thought,  and  causes  him  pain,  and  holds  him  in  bondage.  But  by 
and  by,  after  six  or  eight  months,  go  and  see  that  same  fellow,  when 
he  is  sent  as  an  orderly  to  deliver  a  message.  See  how  he  meets  his 
supei'ior,  and  salutes  him.  See  what  a  fine  carriage  he  has.  See 
how  graceful  and  manly  he  is.  See  how  perfectly  he  moves.  And 
he  is  not  conscious  of  these  things.  He  does  not  think  about  them. 
He  has  learned  them,  and  become  so  familiar  with  them  that  they 
are  a  second  nature  to  him.  He  has  gone  through  the  bondage  of 
trial,  and  subdued  every  muscle  of  his  body  to  the  various  postures 
which  his  vocation  as  a  soldier  reqmres ;  and  now  he  assumes  them 
without  a  thought.  He  has  broken  through  into  perfect  obedience; 
and  perfect  obedience  sets  him  free  from  self-consciousness.  "What 
he  has  learned  makes  him  a  man  of  liberty. 

When  the  violinist  first  takes  his  position  before  his  master,  the 
young  man  is  told  how  to  place  his  feet,  and  how  to  hold  his  body. 
He  would  take  up  the  violin  as  if  it  were  a  saw,  and  the  sounds 
which  he  made  on  it  would  not  be  unlike  those  of  a  saw,  if  he  were 
left  to  his  own  untaught  nature;  but  the  master  says,  "So  must 
you  take  up  the  instrument,  and  so  must  you  hold  it,  and  so  must 
you  draw  the  bow  across  it."  It  seems  strange  to  him  that  he  must 
do  so ;  but  as  he  is  told  that  that  is  the  proper  wa}'-,  he  tries  to 
follow  the  directions  given  him.  All  the  movements  have  to  be 
studied  and  practiced  before  he  can  become  graceful  and  facile  in 
his  manipulations,  and  produce  sweet  effects,  and  exhibit  energy 
and  fire.  It  takes  months  and  months,  and  perhaps  years,  for  him 
to  make  a  proficient  musician  of  himself;  but  by  and  by  he  be- 
comes perfect,  and  then  it  is  a  thousand  times  more  natural  for 
him  to  do  as  he  has  been  taught,  than  to  follow  his  old  nature. 
Then  he  is  a  performer  that  has  learned  his  liberty  by  obedience  to 


334  TRE  LA  W  OF  LIBERTY. 

law.     Then  lie  has  hrohen  in  his  liand.     And  the  same  is  true  of 
the  pianist. 

Take  another  instance  which  is  applicable  to  the  lower  under- 
standing. Let  a  man  who  does  not  understand  the  French  lan- 
guage go  to  Paris.  Or,  let  a  man  go  there  who  only  knows  the 
French  language  as  he  has  learned  it  from  books.  We  learn  a  lan- 
guage three  times :  we  learn  it  with  our  eyes,  to  read  it ;  Ave  learn 
it  with  our  ears,  to  understand  it  when  other  people  speak  it ;  and 
we  learn  it  with  our  tongue,  to  speak  it  ourselves.  But  let  him 
who  has  only  learned  a  language  by  the  eye  undertake  to  help 
himself  by  speaking  it,  and  what  a  bondage  is  he  in !  I  know. 
I  speak  feelingly  on  this  subject.  You  have  been  a  man  of  some 
fluency  in  your  own  country ;  but  in  France  you  do  not  know 
how  to  get  your  verbs  out,  nor  how  to  put  them  in  shape,  and  you 
forget  your  substantives  and  adjuncts,  and  make  a  fool  of  yourself, 
trying  to  communicate  your  ideas.  A  man  in  Paris  who  has 
learned  the  French  language  by  sight  and  by  hearing,  but  not  by 
the  tongue,  may  have  imperative  wants  and  desires,  and  may  suffer 
and  well-nigh  perish,  because  he  has  not  the  power  to  make  himself 
understood.  But  if  he  remains  among  the  French  people,  he  grad- 
ually becomes  familiar  with  their  manner  of  speaking.  The  process 
is  a  slow  one ;  but  at  first  he  learns  a  few  words,  and  tlien  a  few 
phrases ;  and  he  goes  on,  step  by  step,  until,  by  and  by,  after  he  has 
been  there  a  year  (it  would  take  five  years,  if  it  were  I),  he  can 
talk  with  the  utmost  fluency.  And  now  he  has  gone  through  his 
bondage-period,  and  come  to  a  condition  of  freedom.  And  he 
forgets  all  about  his  instruction,  for  the  thing  is  inside  of  him,  and 
not  outside  any  more. 

Take  another  illustration.  Here  is  a  boy  whose  father  was  a 
thief,  and  whose  mother  was  fitly  married  to  such  a  father.  He 
has  been  taught  from  his  childhood  that  stealing  was  a  proper  in- 
strument with  which  to  fight  his  way  through  life.  Tlie  tendency 
to  steal  was  born  in  him,  and  it  has  been  bred  in  him.  Until  he  is 
eight  or  nine  years  of  age,  his  idea  of  one's  superioj-ity  is  the  being 
able  to  lie  more  shrewdly  and  steal  more  adroitly  than  another.  He 
is  noticed,  and  taken  out  of  the  nest  of  vice  where  he  is,  by  a 
generous-hearted,  noble  man,  who  pities  him  and  yearns  to  save 
him.  He  is  washed  and  dressed,  and  he  feels  some  more  self-respect 
than  he  has  been  accustomed  to  feel.  He  is  talked  Avith  and 
reasoned  with,  and  he  begins  to  have  some  perception  of  his  condi- 
tion. He  sees  other  children  than  those  whose  companionship  he 
has  been  used  to,  and  he  begins  to  feel  that  he  is  in  a  different  at-  * 
mosphere.    And  at  last  the  idea  is  born  into  his  mind  that  truth  is 


TEE  LA  W  OF  LIBEBTT.  335 

a  real  quality, — that  it  means  something, — that  it  is  desirable,  and 
that  lying  and  stealing  are  bad  practices  which  he  ought  to  get  rid  of. 
It  is  a  good  while  before  he  gets  up  to  that ;  bui?  at  last  he  does  get 
up  to  it,  and  he  says,  "  I  am  determined  to  break  myself  of  lying 
and  stealing,  fo/ 1  accept  the  law  of  truth  and  the  law  of  honesty." 
But  he  is  not  through  with  the  work  of  reformation  yet,  by  a  good 
deal.  In  easy  places  he  will  keep  his  resolution,  and  will  not  lie 
nor  steal;  but  he  will  be  constantly  coming  into  hard  places,  and 
will  break  down  again  and  again.  It  is  months  and  months  before 
he  meets  with  any  marked  success  in  his  efforts  to  reform ;  but  in 
the  course  of  a  year  or  two  he  works  himself  up  to  sucli  a  moral 
state  that  he  feels  the  grandeur  of  truth  and  the  beauty  of  honesty, 
and  his  tendency  to  deceive  and  cheat  is  lost,  and  he  speaks  the 
truth  of  course — he  speaks  it  inevitably.  Yea,  and  some  years  fur- 
ther along,  he  speaks  the  truth  without  thinking  whether  he  is 
speaking  the  truth  or  not.  So  well  drilled  is  he  in  speaking  the 
truth  that  it  comes  to  him  naturally.  He  never  stops  to  see  what 
the  words  are  as  they  come  out  of  the  die.  They  all  have  th%  image 
and  superscription  of  truth  on  them.  He  has  risen  superior  to  the 
law  of  truth  and  the  law  of  honesty,  by  exacting  from  himself  per- 
fect obedience  to  them.  It  took  him  a  good  while  to  do  it ;  but 
now  that  he  has  done  it,  he  dwells  perpetually  in  that  superior  realm. 

These  illustrations  are  of  universal  application.  In  coming  to 
obedience  to  any  law,  first  we  perceive  the  desirableness  or  necessity 
of  it;  then  we  determine  that  we  will  obey  it;  then,  by  drill  and 
practice,  we  are  enabled  to  obey  so  perfectly  that  we  do  it  uncon- 
sciously. And  when  we  come  to  this  point,  the  law  has  so  passed 
into  our  being  that  it  is  a  law  in  us,  and  not  a  law  on  us.  It  is  a 
law  which,  if  I  may  change  the  figure,  we  have  overtaken  on  the 
road,  and  passed  before,  so  that  it  is  behind  us,  and  we  are  in  a  state 
of  liberty. 

So  long  as  you  refuse  to  obey  any  law  which  is  fundamental  to 
the  development  of  society,  you  are  in  bondage  to  a  tyrant  who 
stands  over  you,  as  it  were,  and,  with  a  rod  of  iron  or  a  whip  of 
scorpions,  at  his  own  leisure  or  will,  chastises  you ;  for  laws,  if 
they  do  not  get  obedience,  exact  penalty.  It  is  not  until  you 
have  learned  what  the  law  is,  and  accepted  its  requisitions,  and 
drilled  yourself  in  compliance  with  it,  so  that  it  has  become  a  part 
of  your  very  life,  your  meat  and  drink,  to  obey  it,  that  you  are  free 
from  it.  When  a  man  does  right  so  strongly  that  he  does  it  Avith- 
out  thinking  of  it  or  registering  it,  then  he  is  free  from  the  lasv. 

"  What  is  that  ?"  "  A."  "  What  is  that  ?"  "  B."  "  And  what 
is  that  ?"     "  C."     This  is  for  little  children.     Who  ever  called  a  boy 


336  THE  LA  W  OF  LIBERTY. 

up  out  of  the  senior  class  in  any  college,  and  required  him  to  say 
his  A  B  C's  ?  He  is  beyond  the  spelling-book  ;  but  it  was  by  learn- 
ing it  that  he  got  beyond  it.  We  have  to  learn  to  cipher  in  the  lower 
forms  of  arithmetic,  before  we  can  take  up  the  higher  forms  of 
mathematics.  We  take  these  lower  forms  on  our  way  upward,  and 
have  to,  before  we  have  liberty  to  go  up. 

We  can  understand,  from  this  line  of  analysis  and  observation, 
the  mystery  of  the  passage  which  I  read  in  the  opening  service  this 
morning,  and  which  is  contained  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Mat- 
thew's Gospel : 

"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me;  for  I  am  meek  and 
lowly  in  heart ;  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.  For  my  yoke  is  easy, 
and  my  burden  is  light." 

Do  not  you  see,  according  to  the  line  of  this  truth  which  I  have 
unfolded,  that  when  you  take  up  any  great  duty,  the  beginning  of 
it  is  a  yoke  to  you  ?  But  if  you  fight  your  Avay  through,  by  train- 
ing, to  a  perfect  obedience  to  the  law  of  duty,  there  ceases  to  be  a 
contest",  and  the  thing  becomes  involuntary,  natural  and  easy. 
Every  great  duty  that  tends  to  lift  a  man  from  the  animal 
toward  the  spiritual — from  the  sensuous  toward  the  divine,  every 
great  moral  maxim,  comes  upon  a  man  as  a  hindrance,  as  a  yoke,  as 
a  chain.  If  one  submits  to  the  law, — if  he  accepts  it  in  the  inward 
man  and  carries  it  into  practice  in  the  outward  life,  he  will  come  to  a 
liberty  which  he  would  never  attain  if  he  did  not  conform  himself 
to  law  ;  and  the  yoke  will  be  easy,  and  the  burden  light,to  him. 

The  first  step,  therefore,  is — burden.  The  last  step  is — ease.  The 
first  step  is  bondage  to  the  yoke.  The  next  step,  and  the  next,  and 
the  next,  are  toAvard  broad  and  perfect  liberty. 

The  young  bird  that  hangs  quivering  on  the  nest — how  feeble 
it  is  in  its  wing !  and  how  poor  it  is  at  flying  !  But  by  springing, 
with  the  aid  of  its  wings,  it  goes  a  little  way ;  and  then  it 
rests,  panting.  Oh,  how  hard  flying  is  to  the  young  bird  !  But, 
by  hunger,  and  the  persuasion  of  its  parents,  it  is  induced  to  ven- 
ture again,  and  perhaps  goes  fluttering  down  to  the  ground.  Oh, 
what  hard  business  it  is  to  fly !  But,  gathering  strength,  it  flies  up 
to  a  lower  bough.  Then  it  hops  to  another  bough.  Then  it  tidies 
to  hop  to  another,  which  is  twice  as  far  off",  and  misses  it,  and  lights 
on  the  ground  again,  where  it  rests  and  pants.  Then  it  rises  on  its 
wings,  and  goes  up,  and  up,  and  up.  And  now  how  proud  it  is 
that  it  can  reach  in  its  flight  the  loftiest  bough  of  the  overspread- 
ing tree  !  And  it  looks  around,  and  congratulates  itself,  and  says, 
"  Am  not  I  a  bird  ?"  And  before  a  week  is  gone  it  is  seen  far  up 
above  the  highest  trees,  and  has  perfect  liberty  to  go  whither  it  will. 


THE  LA  W  OF  LIBEBTT.  337 

So,  when  men  are  born  into  duty,  their  fii'st  steps  are  burden- 
some and  feeble ;  but  soon,  by  practice,  they  lift  themselves  above 
the  entangling  thickets,  above  all  obstructions,  and  have  the  liberty 
of  God's  air.  And  they  dxQ  free.  They  have  gained  strength  of 
wing  by  which  they  can  fly  whithersoever  they  will  in  their  Father's 
realm. 

We  learn,  too,  what  is  meant  by  one's  being  a  law  unto  Mm&elf. 
This  is  a  phrase  which  has  stumbled  a  great  many  persons,  and  led 
some  into  sloughs  of  sensuous  indulgence,  and  thrown  others  into 
paroxysms  of  fear  lest  they  should  fall  upon  a  false  interpretation 
of  it,  and  so  go  wrong.  What  is  it  to  be  a  law  unto  yourself? 
Simply  to  have  embodied  in  yourself  God's  laws.  You  are  not  a 
law  unto  yourself,  until  you  do  what  the  law  requires  better  by 
automatic  action  than  by  voluntary  effort. 

By  systems  of  ritual  which  largely  prevail,  men  are  required  to 
make  genuflexions  before  a  cross.  What  is  that  for  ?  Ask  any  in- 
telligent priest,  and  he  will  say  that  it  promotes  reverence.  I  can 
see  how  among  children  and  ignorant  persons  it  may  promote 
reverence ;  but  as  those  children  and  ignorant  persons  develop  in 
their  religious  nature,  there  will  come  a  time  when  no  outward 
symbol  will  be  required  to  develop  reverence.  Every  Christian 
ought  to  aim  at  slich  a  condition  of  growth  that  the  feeling  of  rev- 
erence shall  pour  out  in  such  a  tide  that  there  shall  be  no  need  of 
genuflexions  or  symbols  or  images  to  produce  it,  because  his  own 
nature  is  productive  of  it. 

As  soon  as  a  man  has  learned  what  the  will  of  God  is  in  respect 
to  law,  he  forgets  it.  That  is  to  say,  he  has  put  the  law  in  himself, 
so  that  it  is  registered  there,  and  set  to  perform  its  own  work. 

I  never  think  of  the  whole  physiology  of  sleep  when  I  go  to 
bed.  I  go  to  bed  on  general  principles,  and  let  the  particular  func- 
tions and  results  of  it  engage  the  attention  of  whomsoever  they 
concern.  I  never  avoid  fire  because  I  reason  out  the  whole  effect  of 
going  into  the  fire.  You  do  a  thousand  things  every  day  for  the 
sake  of  law,  without  once  thinking  about  law.  You  go  along 
Broadway,  and  in  threading  your  way,  or  crossing  the  street,  at  the 
same  time  that  you  are  quickening  your  step  he^e  or  slackening 
your  pace  there, — at  the  same  time  that  you  are  turning  out  for  some 
foot-passenger,  or  dodging  this  way  or  that  to  avoid  being  run  over 
by  some  vehicle,  you  are  following  up,  in  your  thoughts,  some 
debtor,  and  taking  measures  to  secure  what  he  owes  you,  or  you  are 
planning  to  evade  some  creditor  who  is  pressing  you  so  hard  as  to 
make  it  uncomfortable  for  you.  Your  body  takes  care  of  itself, 
and  your  mind  is  engaged  with  business  matters,  at  the  same  time. 


338  TEE  LA  W  OF  LIBEBTY. 

Your  body  is  going  thx-ongli  a  series  of  compound  gymnastics,  and 
at  the  same  time  your  mind  is  involved  in  a  complicated,  intellec- 
tual process.  And  each  operation  is  carried  on  independent  of  the 
the  other,  and  unconsciously.  Therefore'  in  these  respects  you  are 
a  law  unto  yourself. 

Do  you  suppose  a  man  would  drive  better  who  should  have 
a  book  telling  him  how  to  do  under  such  and  such  circumstances, 
and  should  depend  upon  that  book,  than  he  would  if  he  threw 
away  his  book,  and  was  guided  by  his  own  sense  and  intuition, 
independent  of  direction  or  reasoning  ?  Would  he  not  get  into 
trouble  twenty  times  in  the  former  case,  where  he  would  once  in 
the  latter  ?  A  man  is  not  fit  to  do  anything  well  till  he  can  do  it 
without  thinking  about  it. 

Suppose  a  man  came  to  you  and  offered  himself  as  an  account- 
ant, and  you  employed  him,  and  found  him  adding  up  columns  of 
figures,  and  saying,  " Two  and  two  are  four;  and  four  and  two  are 
six ;  and  six  and  four  are — let  me  see — eight ;  no,  six  and  four  are 
ten,"  how  long  Avould  you  keep  him  ? 

Brethren,  though  you  laugh  at  it  in  arithmetic,  that  is  the  way 
you  manage  matters  of  grace.  God  sends  you  to  school :  and  what 
does  he  find  ?  Here  is  a  man  that  is  red  in  the  face  with  anger. 
Somebody  has  poked  an  unseemly  story  off  on  him.  He  says,  "  That 
man  had  no  business  to  do  so.  Still,  I  am  a  Christian,  and  I  ought 
not  to  get  angry.  Oh,  if  I  could  only  catch  that  man  !  But  it  is 
not  right  for  me  to  feel  so.  Nevertheless,  he  had  no  business  to 
do  it.  I  will  come  up  with  him  yet.  But,  being  a  Christian,  it  is 
wrong  for  me  to  indulge  in  such  thoughts."  Such  a  man,  as  a 
Christian,  is  what  such  a  man  as  T  have  described  is  as  an  account- 
ant.    Neither  of  them  knows  his  business.  ' 

See  how  men  deal  with  themselves  in  the  matter  of  humility. 
They  try  to  be  humble  by  the  exertion  of  their  will.  But  nobody 
will  ever  be  humble  by  trying.  If  humility  does  not  come  to  you, 
and  spread  all  over  you,  as  the  light  of  the  sun  spreads  over  you,  it 
will  not  manifest  itself  to  any  purpose  in  your  life.  The  same  is 
true  in  regard  to  loving  one's  enemies.  You  cannot  love  your  ene- 
mies by  mere  trying.  Trial  is  the  first  stage  in  Christian  develop- 
ment, but  do  not  call  yourself  an  expert,  a  proficient,  a  Christian 
par  excellence,  until  the  distinguishing,  Christian  graces  come  to 
you  in  ways  that  are  spontaneous,  automatic,  abundant,  overflow- 
ing, consentaneous,  symmetrical,  and  broad  as  the  stream  of  life — 
until  every  thought  and  feeling  has  been  subdued  to  the  supreme 
will  of  God,  which  is  love.  When  you  have  reached  that  condition, 
then  you  may  call  yourself  an  expert  Christian.     You  think  you 


THB  LA  W  OF  LIBEETY.  339 

are  a  Christian  -when  you  set  at  naught  in  your  religious  life 
rules  which  you  know  to  be  thoroughly  true  everywhere  else.  Oli, 
how  much  we  have  to  learn  yet !  Oh,  how  much  grace  it  takes 
to  do  a  little  work  in  men ! 

We  sec,  also,  in  the  light  of  this  discourse,  why  so  much  of 
Christian  life  is  imperfect,  so  unlovely  and  so  unjoyful.  One  reason 
why  there  is  so  little  that  is  lovely  in  Christian  life,  is  that 
there  is  so  much  partialtsm  about  it.  Men  tend  to  run  into  a 
few  experiences,  and  consider  them  critical  and  decisive  experiences, « 
and  think  that  they  are  going  to  draw  their  dividends  of  joyfulness 
on  the  other  side.  They  think  that  if  in  this  world  they  live  well 
enough  to  occupy  a  respectable  position  in  the  church,  and  to  main- 
tain respectable  social  connections,  that  is  enough.  They  have  not 
such  an  idea  of  Christian  life  as  Mr,  Zundel  has  of  this  organ.  It 
is  vast  and  complex.  It  is  three  organs  in  one,  as  we  have  in  the 
body  the  soul  and  the  spirit,  according  to  the  Pauline  theory.  And 
the  stops  in  the  organ  may  be  likened  to  the  faculties  in  man.  If 
one  stop  is  out  of  order,  and  a  tune  is  played,  no  matter  if  all  the 
rest  are  in  order,  that  one  spoils  the  effect  of  all  the  rest.  And  if 
any  faci-ilty  in  man  is  educated  and  trained  wrong,  it  has  power  to 
throw  all  the  other  faculties  into  discord,  and  mar  the  result  of  their 
action. 

There  are  many  persons  who  are  very  eaa-nest  and  devoted  in  the 
performance  of  their  public  religious  duties,  but  whose  lives  in  pri- 
vate are  anything  but  religious.  I  have  in  my  mind  an  old  mother  in 
Israel,  who  was  an  attentive  listener,  and  who  was  a  gauge  by  which 
I  could  tell  how  I  was  preaching.  When  she  began  to  weave  up  and 
down,  I  knew  that  I  was  on  the  right  track,  but  when  she  stopped 
weaving,  I  knew  that  I  was  getting  off  the  track.  She  was  remark- 
able for  her  zeal  at  religious  meetings ;  but  at  home  she  was  a  joerfecfc 
shrew.  And  she  had  not  a  child  that  was  not  an  infidel.  It  was 
that  one  discordant  stop  that  threw  tiie  line  of  life  in  that  family 
into  jangle  and  discord. 

You  may  liuvo  in  your  house  twenty  rooms.  Half  of  them  may 
be  well  ceiled  and  well  finished;  but  if  you  leave  out  the  doors  and 
windows  in  the  other  half,  so  tliat  the  wind  and  rain  and  cold  come 
in,  the  good  condition  of  the  first  half  will  not  help  it.  It  will  be  as 
bad  as  though  the  whole  house  Avere  without  doors  or  windows. 

The  apostle  says,  "  Put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God."  Where  a 
man  is  armed  so  that  he  cannot  be  hit  in  the  head,  nor  in  the 
back,  nor  in  the  legs,  nor  in  the  arms,  nor  in  the  hands,  nor  in  the 
bowels,  but  has  forgotten  his  breast-plate,  the  javelin  may  strike 
through  and  destroy  him  as  much  as  though  he  were  not  armed  afc 


340  THE  LA  W  OF  LIBERTY. 

all.  A  man  may  perish  if  he  is  j^rotected  in  all  but  one  spot,  and 
that  is  left  unprotected.  That  spot  is  enough  for  the  devil's  archery 
— and  he  knows  where  it  is  generally. 

When  you  look  on  Christian  life,  why  is  it  so  unfruitful  ?  Why 
is  it  so  barren  ?  Because  men  so  seldom  have  an  idea  that  Chris- 
tianity means  resplendent,  magnificently  divine,  spiritual  manhood, 
brought  out  of  the  imperfect  elements  of  the  flesh,  the  soul  and  the 
spirit,  here ;  because  they  attempt  to  make  one  or  two  faculties 
'  strong,  and  neglect  all  the  rest;  because  mainly  these  are  so  low, 
so  undrilled,  so  crude,  so  intermitting,  so  in  excess  of  the  great 
Christian  feelings. 

I  remark,  again,  that  nobody  is  so  much  in  bondage  as  the  man 
who  recognizes  the  claims  of  God's  law  upon  him,  and  in  a  small 
and  faint  way  attempts  to  fulfill  it,  but  never  succeeds  in  coming 
to  perfect  obedience.     No  man  is  so  unhappy  as  he. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  locomotive  start  a  long  train  of  freight-cars  ? 
The  engineer  puts  on  the  steam,  and  the  locomotive  jerks  one  car, 
and  then  the  second,  and  then  the  third,  and  so  ou  ;  and  by  the 
time  the  last  one  is  reached,  the  train  has  gained  considerable  mo- 
mentum. But  suppose,  instead  of  keeping  up  this  momentum  and 
increasing  it,  the  engineer  should  stop  the  cars,  and  go  over  the 
process  of  jerking  this  dead  weight  and  starting  it  again!  What 
does  the  engineer  do  ?  He  puts  on  steam  and  gets  such  an  impulse, 
that  when  he  shuts  off  steam  the  train  will  go  half  a  mile  simply  by 
its  momentum. 

Now,  in  the  practice  of  manly  traits  men,  in  many  cases,  get  up 
no  momentum ;  sometimes  because  they  are  afraid  to ;  sometimes 
because  they  think  they  must  examine  themselves,  so  as  to  be  sure 
that  they  make  no  mistake.  It  is  with  you  as  it  is  with  everybody 
else.  If  you  suspect  a  man  and  watch  him,  and  do  not  put  any 
trust  in  him,  you  will  make  him  untrustworthy.  The  way  to  make 
men  trustworthy  is  to  trust  them,  and  make  them  feel  that  you 
trust  them.  And  in  your  own  case,  if  you  would  succeed,  have 
confidence  in  yourself,  give  yourself  liberty,  trust  yourself;  get  your 
way  and  direction  marked  out,  and  then  go  ahead  ;  and  do  not  stop 
till  the  thing  is  done.  Then  stop  and  see  how  you  have  done  it, 
and  take  wisdom  for  the  next  time.  Somehow,  get  up  steam,  get 
up  momentum,  have  courage,  fervor,  enthusiasm,  headlongness,  in 
things  right.  These  elements  are  indispensable  in  this  world.  The 
person  who  says,  "I  desire  to  love,  and  I  think  I  love,  but  am  I  sure 
that  I  am  right  ?"  and  stops  to  examine  himself  and  see  whether  he 
loves  or  not,  turns  an  emotionary  experience  into  a  ratiocinating 
eelf-inspccting  process.     Men  are  suspecting,  cautious,  untrustiug 


THE  LA  W  OF  LIBERTY.  341 

of  themselves ;  and  so  they  get  no  impetus,  their  whole  life  la 
chopped  up  into  morsels  of  self-examination,  and  there  is  no  power 
in  them. 

What  sort  of  time  would  a  watch  keep  that  you  stopped  every 
moment  to  see  how  it  was  getting  on  ?  What  sort  of  music  would 
that  be  which  was  intermitted  every  ten  notes  to  wind  up  some 
string,  or  fix  some  pipe,  or  put  the  instrument  in  order  in  some 
way  ? 

You  must  trust  yourself,  you  must  give  yourself  some  liberty, 
and  that  liberty  must  have  some  lunge.  Therefore,  take  your  aim 
right ;  be  sure  that  you  mean  right,  and  then  go  ahead. 

"  But  will  not  a  man  make  mistakes  in  this  way  ?''  You  will 
make  mistakes  anyhow.  "  Will  not  a  man  get  into  difficulty  ?" 
You  will  get  into  difficulty  anyhow.  If  you  push  forward  you  will 
get  into  one  sort  of  difl&culty,  and  if  you  hold  back  you  will  get 
into  another  sort ;  but  there  is  this  advantage  in  pushing  forward : 
that  thus  you  will  develop  faster  in  manhood  and  power  than  in 
any  other  way. 

Let  me  say,  here,  that  in  bringing  up  our  children  we  must  act 
according  to  this  Scriptural  idea  of  liberty.  Men  think  that  their 
children  must  be  governed ;  and  their  idea  of  governing  is  often 
about  equivalent  to  a  cooper's  idea  of  holding  a  barrel  together. 
He  gets  so  many  staves,  and  puts  one  hoop  around  them  at  the 
bottom,  another  in  the  middle,  and  another  at  the  top ;  and  then 
he  drives  the  hoops  home ;  and  every  stave  is  in  its  place ;  there  is 
not  one  vagrant ;  and  Avitli  good  usage  they  will  all  stay  where 
they  are  for  a  hundred  years  ;  but  it  is  nothing  but  a  barrel,  after 
all. 

Here  are  the  children  in  a  family,  and  "there  is  a  pattern  char- 
acter. It  is  attempted  to  bring  them  up  according  to  that  pattern 
character.  They  are  cufied  here  and  driven  in  there,  and  watched 
everywhere.  And  when  the  hoops  are  put  on  and  driven  home, 
people  say  of  them,  "  Perfect  children!" — perfect  barrels!  There 
is  no  real  and  natural  life  in  them. 

The  way  to  bring  up  children  is  to  bring  them  up  to  know 
what  are  the  laws  that  govern  them  in  moral,  social,  and  physical 
life.  The  way  is  to  put  them  where  they  Avill  have  to  fight  with 
each  one  of  these  laws,  and  subdue  it.  When  a  child  has  gone 
through  this  process,  he  has  become  a  law  unto  liimself.  If  you 
govern  your  children  in  the  family,  restraining  them  in  every  di- 
rection, and  giving  thorn  no  liberty,  you  make  automatons  of  them. 

How  is  a  child  ever  going  to  learn  to  drive,  if  his  father  always 
holds  on  to  his  hands,  and  pulls  the  reins  through  his  hands?     I 


34:2  TEE  LA  W  OF  LIBEBTY. 

used  to  ride  the  horse  to  water  behind  brother  George,  but  I  never 
rode  him  alone,  until  one  morning  when  I  took  him  out  into  the 
road,  and  got  up  on  his  back,  and  headed  him  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, and  started  him  off  at  a  fair  pace.  With  some  difficulty  I 
contrived  to  hold  on  this  time.  The  next  time,  encouraged  by  the 
success  of  the  first  ride,  I  thought  I  would  go  faster;  so  I  struck 
the  horse  with  a  switch,  and  he  broke  into  a  canter.  Knowing  how 
disagreeable  it  was  to  change  from  a  canter  to  a  trot,  I  kept  him  in 
a  full  canter,  till  he  reached  the  brook's  edge  ;  and  there  he  stopped 
suddenly — but  I  did  not !  The  liquid  argument  that  followed  was 
one  which  I  never  forgot.  I  rode  better  the  third  time  for  my  mis- 
hap the  second  time.  I  never  needed  to  ride  behind  anybody  after 
that. 

You  cannot  teach  a  child  to  take  care  of  himself  unless  you  will 
let  him  try  to  take  care  of  himself  He  will  make  mistakes ;  and 
out  of  these  mistakes  will  come  his  wisdom. 

Fathers  and  mothers  are  oftentimes  so  excessively  conscientious 
that  they  spoil  their  children  in  bringing  them  up,  because  they 
never  develop  in  them  the  instinct  of  self-care  and  manly  independ- 
ence. Where  a  child  is  kept  under,  till  he  is  fifteen  or  eighteen  or 
twenty  years  of  age,  and  then  is  sent  away  from  home  and  thrust 
into  temptation,  what  is  the  result  ?  Some  children,  under  such 
circumstances,  have  a  vengeance  to  execute.  They  say,  "I  have 
been  shut  up  all  my  life,  and  now  I  Avill  take  advantage  of  my  lib- 
erty;" and  they  go  headlong  into  degrading  and  wicked  indul- 
gences. Other  children  say,  "  I  have  been  brought  up,  from  my 
infancy,  to  obey  somebody  else ;  and  now  I  will  obey  nobody  but 
myself."  And  so  they  defy  laws  and  magistrates.  The  consequence 
is,  not  having  become  a  "law  unto  themselves,  they  run  into  trans- 
gression and  get  into  trouble. 

I  obey  no  magistrate  in  Brooklyn.  I  do  not  obey  the  asses- 
sor nor  the  collector.  I  obey  myself  It  is  my  pleasure  to  be  taxed 
for  the  support  of  the  commonwealth.  It  is  a  personal  gratification 
to  me  to  do  my  part  toward  carrying  on  the  Government. 

Do  I  avoid  lying  because  the  Bible  says,  "Lie  not  one  to 
another "  ?  No.  I  avoid  lying  because  I  like  truth  better  than 
lies.  It  pleases  me  to  tell  the  truth  better  than  anything  else.  I 
do  it  not  only  because  I  fear  God,  but  because  God's  will  seems 
so  much  better  than  anything  else.  I  do  it  to  please  myself  in 
pleasing  God. 

We  should  rear  our  children  to  obedience;  and  they  should  be 
taught  obedience  by  self-control.  The  child  is  commanded  to  do 
the  thing  that  is  right.     He  reluctates.     He  is  punished.     Instantly 


TEE  LA  W  OF  LIBEBTT.  343 

lie* wants  some  reason.  Obedience  is  enforced.  "  Why  must  I  do 
so,  father  ?"  Because  I  tell  you  to — that  is  why."  Sometimes  it  is 
put  in  less  complimentary  phrase:  "I  will  whip  you  if  you  do  not." 
But  I  ask  you,  ought  a  child  to  obey  its  father  and  mother  because 
they  are  his  father  and  mother,  or  because  tliey  stand  for  certain 
divine  laws?  Ought  not  the  motive  to  obedience  to  be,  through 
father  and  mother,  Grod  ?  The  apostle  does  not  teach  children  to 
obey  their  parents,  so  that  father  and  mother  shall  be  the  back- 
ground. God  Almighty  is  the  background,  and  the  child  obeys 
God  in  obeying  his  father  and  mother. 

I  will  detain  you  but  for  one  other  application,  though  I  have  a 
long  line  of  them,  which  time  will  not  allow  me  to  use. 

We  are  attempting  to  come  to  a  larger  liberty  in  society.  Men 
must  come  to  liberty  through  bondage.  It  cannot  be  helped.  You 
cannot  give  the  citizens  of  a  State  liberty  by  the  enactment  of  con- 
stitutions and  laws,  nor  by  the  repealing  of  constitutions  and  laws; 
but  you  can  give  them  liberty  by  developing  in  them  that  self- 
government  which  is  liberty.  If  that  be  undeveloped,  liberty  can- 
not be  guaranteed  by  any  law  or  constitution. 

•  Therefore  it  is  that,  though  you  may  confer  nominal  liberty,  it 
is  Christ  that  makes  men  free;  it  is  the  Spirit  that  leads  men  w^ 
above  the  law,  in  the  best  sense  of  fulfilling  the  law  in  one's  self. 
Education,  practical  moral  culture,  physical  development,  all  those 
things  which  go  to  make  large  manhood — these  are  the  alphabetic 
letters  by  which  you  are  to  develop  the  literature  of  liberty. 

I  believe  in  the  law  v/hich  entitles  the  slaves  of  the  South  to 
liberty ;  but  I  do  not  believe  that  they  are  free  yet.  "Why  ?  Be- 
cause they  have  not  learned  self-government.  They  Avill  not  learn 
it  in  this  generation,  nor  in  the  next.  All  the  laws  that  have  been 
enacted,  or  that  may  be  enacted,  cannot  efface  the  mischiefs  of  bar- 
barism and  of  slavery,  and  bring  men  at  once  into  that  perfect  man- 
hood which  Christ  inspires,  and  which  carries  with  it  liberty  in  the 
truest  sense  of  the  term.  It  will  take  generations  to  bring  men  up 
to  the  level  of  that  light  and  liberty  in  which  they  can  stand  sever- 
ally in  their  own  individual  freedom,  doing  what  is  right  because 
they  have  learned  Avhat  is  right  in  their  condition  and  circum- 
stances. When  men  have  had  their  personal  battle  with  the  laws 
of  God  and  of  men,  with  tlie  laws  of  nature  and  of  grace,  and  sub- 
dued them  inside  of  themselves,  so  that  their  will  is  God's  will,  then 
they  have  entered  upon  the  higher  form  of  liberty. 

But  it  is  not  the  black-faced  man  alone  that  needs  to  learn  this 
love  of  liberty.  All  through  society  it  is  the  same  thing.  You 
may  shout  on  the  Fourth  of  July  as  much  as  you  please,  but  you 


844  TEB  LA  W  OF  LIBEB  TI. 

are  not  free,  who  are  bond-slaves  to  lust,  self-indulgence,  pride,  enyy, 
avarice,  or  passions  and  appetites  of  any  kind.  You  are  Satan's 
slaves.  You  are  slaves  as  long  as  God's  perfect  will,  expressed  in 
nature  outside  and  grace  inside,  is  not  made  known  to  you  intelli- 
gently, and  yon  have  not  accejited  it,  and  arrived  at  a  state  of  auto- 
matic action  under  it.  A  knowledge  of  the  law,  its  acceptance, 
unconscious  obedience  to  it,  is  liberty;  but  nothing  short  of  that  is 
liberty. 

Therefore  it  is  we  say  that  the  Gospel  contains  the  germ  of 
liberty — that  Gospel  which  opens  the  prison-^oor,  and  breaks  the 
chams,  and  lets  the  captives  go  free  :  that  Gospel  which  gives  men 
manhood,  and  inspires  them  with  virtue,  aud  makes  them  pure,  and 
true,  and  sweet,  and  loving,  and  God  like. 

May  God  give  us  a  longing  for  liberty — not  a  longing  to  throw 
off  law,  but  to  adjust  it  to  our  nature  and  condition  ;  not  a  longing 
to  do  as  we  have  a  mind  to,  except  as  we  have  the  mind  and  will  of 
God.  May  God  bring  ns,  through  a  knowledge  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  to  those  higher  experiences  which  come  through  that  purity 
of  character,  that  afiluent  example,  that  divine  manifestation,  Avhich 
he  develops  by  his  people  and  church,  that  we  may  be  burning  aiid 
shining  lights  in  the  midst  of  a  perverse  generation,  until  the  Ee- 
deemer  shall  come  and  call  us  home. 


PEAYER  BEFOEE   THE   SERMON". 

We  rejoice,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  dost  teach  us  to  pray,  and  that 
thou  dost  incline  us  to  say,  Our  Father  ivMch  art  in  heaven.  We  have  learned 
that  to  mention  love  out  of  the  heart  is  to  think  and  to  feel  it.  We  have 
learned  that  love  is  worship.  We  have  learned  that  there  is  nothing  higher 
than  this  which  we  have  to  offer,  and  that  they  who  give  love,  give  all  that 
is  worth  giving.  And  when  we  draw  near  to  thee,  and  lift  up  our  hearts 
toward  thee,  and  love  thee,  we  rejoice  that  it  is  to  thee — worship.  Thou  dost 
not  ask  it  at  the  hands  of  those  who  know  thee  to  perfection  alone.  Nor 
dost  thou  require  that  it  should  he  such  love  as  fills  the  heavenly  host  with 
ecstatic  joy.  Thou  art  pleased  with  the  love  of  the  least  and  the  furthest  off 
of  thy  creatures. 

We  know  how  it  is.  Thou  hast  not  hid  thy  secret  from  us,  since  thou 
hast  ordained  us  to  he  in  our  households  in  the  small,  what  thou  art  in  the 
great  household  in  infinite  proportions.  And  though  we  joy  and  rejoice  in 
our  children  who  have  grown  up  into  the  measure  of  our  thinking,  we  do 
not  despise  the  little  ones  that  are  lower  down  and  afar  off.  We  are  rejoiced 
when  the  babo  itself  strives  to  love,  and,  according  to  the  measure  of  its 
littleness  and  imperfectness  shines  out  fondness  toward  us.  Thou  dost  not 
wait  till  we  are  full  grown.  Thou  art  willing  to  take  the  beginning  and  afar- 
off  shining  of  our  hearts'  affection. 

How  selfish  we  are  that  we  should  try  to  love !  How  little  there  is  in  us 
that  has  th(!  power  of  loving!  How  little  we  have  of  discernment'  How 
simple  our  thought  of  God  is!  How  unrich  thou  art  over  against  us!  How 
liast  tUou  been  stripped  bare  by  our  thoughts,  and  made  to  be  nothing  lovely, 


THE  LA  W  OF  LIBEBTT.  345 

but  stern  and  terrible,  so  that  we  shut  our  eyes  and  turn  ourselves  as  from 
coming  storms  and  bolts !  It  was  only  when  we  beheld  thee  as  prefigured 
and  revealed  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  it  was  only  when  thy  heart  was  dis- 
closed, and  we  beheld  thee  through  thy  government;  it  was  only  when  we 
beheld  thee  insi)iriug  men,  and  redeeming  them  by  thine  own  sufferings;  it 
was  only  when  we  beheld  thee  as  One  who  came,  not  to  condemn,  but  to 
save— not  to  demand  saeriflee,  but  to  grant  mercy— it  was  only  at  such  times 
that  we  began  to  learn  to  love.  But  then  how  little  did  we  know !  How 
pale  is  the  Christ  that  lies  on  the  printed  page  until  the  divine  Spirit  gives  it 
life  and  color.  But  on  evei-y  side  cut  of  the  Spirit  that  is  breathed  into  uni- 
versal human  life,  Ave  learn  to  put  together  the  letters  which  spell  thy  glori- 
ous name,  and  go  on  building  up  in  our  thoughts  the  grandeur  of  love,  and 
its  power,  its  infinite  self-sacrifice,  its  joys,  its  happiness,  its  penalties,  its 
yokes,  its  burdens,  and  its  imspeakable  benefits.  Then,  in  the  actual  life  of 
men  who  are  being  formed,  we  find  that  which  exalts  thee,  enthrones  thee, 
and  makes  thee  chief  among  ten  thousand,  and  altogether  lovely.  And  so, 
in  the  chamber  of  imagination,  by  faith,  we  dwell  with  thee,  and  behold 
thee ;  and  there  are  hours  when  all  the  power  of  oiu'  being  cannot  sweep 
around  to  take  in  the  scope  of  the  wondrous  excellence  which  we  perceive 
in  thee,  O  thou  crowned  Savior,  suffering  no  more  as  upon  earth,  in  patience 
and  in  burden-bearing,  and  thinking  not  of  thyself,  but  of  others,  and  suffer- 
ing not  for  thyself,  but  for  others — the  great  thoughtful  Father,  bearing  the 
burden  of  the  household  forever  and  forever — to  thee  we  bring  such  hearts 
as  we  have,  that  they  may  lift  up  their  affection  upon  thee,  and  rejoice  in 
thee,  and  have  a  better  vision,  and  hope  for  a  better  living.  Lord  God 
Almighty,  it  is  thy  Spirit  that  hath  implanted  in  ns  the  germs  of  love.  It  is 
thy  Spirit  that  hath  drawn  out  our  hearts,  though  poor  and  selfish  and 
proud,  to  their  present  development.  It  is  by  the  grace  of  God  that  we  are 
what  we  are  in  all  that  is  good,  and  in  all  that  promises  good. 

And  now  we  commit  ourselves  to  thy  saving  providence,  to  thy  glorious 
grace,  to  thine  ever-watchful  personal  love  in  Christ  Jesus.  The  whole  air  is 
full  of  angelic  ministration.  All  of  human  life  feels  the  working  of  thy 
providence.  All  that  thou  thinkest  is  taking  form  thioughout  thy  vast 
domain,  not  according  to  the  measure  of  our  present  infantile  thought,  but 
according  to  the  grandeur  and  proportion  of  thy  creating  thought  and 
upholding  power.  Though  now  we  could  not  see  thee  and  live,  yet  we  shall 
see  thee  when  we  rise  to  a  more  glorious  condition.  There  we  shall  have 
potency  to  measure  thy  thought  and  thy  work.  And  then,  cleansed  from 
delilements,  and  emaneii^ated  from  the  flesh,  with  all  that  are  in  the  heavens, 
and  all  that  are  on  the  (>arth,  and  all  that  are  throughout  thy  vast  uni- 
vei'se,  we  will  cry  out.  Thou  art  icorthy  to  reign. 

And  now,  O  Lord,  we  beseech  thee  to  forgive  us  our  sius.  We  are 
ashamed  to  ask  to  be  forgiven,  when  we  know  that  we  are  already  forgiven. 
We  are  ashamed  to  ask  as  if  we  were  chiding  thine  indolent  steps,  when  our 
very  desii-e  to  be  forgiven  is  the  sign  of  thy  being  before  us  and  awaking  in 
us  these  thoughts. 

Accept  our  yearnings.  Accept  our  aspirations.  Accept  all  those  germs 
out  of  which  definite  thoughts  come.  As  men  feel  that  the  air,  in  summer, 
is  full  of  strange  and  sweet  odors,  which  come  from  they  know  not  what 
open  flowei-s,  so  th( nights  in  us  come  from  we  know  not  what  source.  Thou 
knowest  our  thoughts  afar  off.  Before  thee  the  verj'  intents  of  our  hearts 
are  ]ilain.  Accept,  then,  th(>  .«ervic(.'  which  comes  from  we  know  not  where, 
but  which  moves  in  us,  and  fills  us,  at  times,  with  an  unspeakable  sweetnsss 
and  sadness,  being  now  full  of  prophecies  of  good,  and  now  full  of  forebod- 
ings of  doom.  These  inward  experiences,  blind  to  oiu-  apprehension,  and 
dumb  to  our  tongue,  thou  knowest  altogether.  .Accept  them,  O  Lord  our 
God,  Father  and  Savior. 


346  TRE  LA  W  OF  LIBEETY. 

And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  help  every  one  of  ns  in  the  battle  of  life. 
Oh,  how  sorry  we  are  to  see  the  white  banner  east  down.  But,  blessed  be 
God,  though  it  be  cast  down  it  is  not  destroyed.  Blessed  be  God,  we  have 
here  and  there  evidences  and  signs  of  victory.  We  behold  many  points  that 
seem  to  us,  in  their  acclivity,  in  their  steepness,  impossible  to  win.  But  how 
many  men  have  subdued  pride  in  all  its  ruggedness  by  the  power  of  the  love 
of  God  through  Jesus  Christ!  We  behold  selfishness  and  its  widespread 
cohorts ;  and  who  shall  overcome  it  ?  Who  shall  know  its  secret  meaning  ? 
Who  shall  understand  its  strategy  ?  Who  shall  be  able  to  meet  it  in  battle, 
when  it  simulates  retreat,  and  then  returns  with  augmented  force  and 
sweeps  away  everything  in  its  course  ?  And  yet,  against  selfishness  we  shall 
be  conquerors,  through  Him  that  loved  us.  So  give  us  courage  that  we  may 
never  give  up,  but  may  fight  manfully  from  day  to  day,  that  we  may  be 
clothed  from  head  to  foot,  leaving  no  place  assailable. 

And  we  pray,  not  only  that  we  may  contest  against  evil,  but  that  we  may 
learn  the  divine  art  of  overcoming  evil  with  good.  Not  only  may  we  over- 
come evil,  but  may  we  bear  the  fruit  of  righteousness,  so  that  men  shall  look 
upon  us  as  we  look  upon  trees  in  the  garden  which  are  loaded  with  good 
things,  desiring  to  partake  thereof.  So  may  we  perform  our  duties  in  life, 
and  fulfil  thy  commandments,  that  men,  seeing  our  good  works,  shall  glorify 
our  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  every  family  that 
is  represented  in  this  assembly,  and  upon  every  heart  that  is  here.  Thou 
knowest  the  condition  of  each  one.  Thou  knowest  what  are  the  innermost 
thoughts  and  experiences  of  our  lives  which  are  hidden  froni  all  but  thee.  • 

O  merciful  Savior !  thou  that  didst  draw  thy  disciples  apart  at  twilight, 
and  sit  under  the  olive  tree,  to  commune  with  them,  wilt  thou  draw  us  apart 
from  day  to  day,  and  commune  with  us,  according  to  our  several  conditions 
and  necessities. 

Bless  all  who  are  strangers  in  our  midst.  May  the  convocation  of  thy 
servants,  gathered  out  of  all  this  land,  to  take  counsel  of  the  things  which 
are  for  the  welfare  of  thy  Zion,  be  under  thy  watchful  care.  Give  them 
wisdom.  Give  them  elevation  of  heart.  Give  them  consecration  to  the 
divine  work  in  which  they  are  engaged.  Give  them  hope  and  coui-age  in 
contemplating  the  greatness  of  the  field  which  lies  before  them.  And  grant 
that  the  years  which  are  to  elapse  ere  they  assemble  again,  may  be  years  not 
only  of  sowing,  but  of  abundant  reaping.  And  may  those  who  shall  be 
called  to  go  home  to  glory,  be  prepared  for  translation.  And  may  others  be 
raised  up  to  take  their  places. 

Grant  that  thy  servants  of  all  churches  may  be  prospered  of  God.  May 
thy  Spirit  cleanse  the  imperfections  of  human  nature,  so  that  in  our  admin- 
istration only  that  which  is  good  shall  take  effect.  And  everywhere,  may  all 
things  work  for  the  promotion  of  thy  cause  and  the  honor  of  thy  name. 

Lord,  take  care  of  ns,  and  of  all  who  are  thine,  while  we  live.  And  may 
we  not  be  afraid  to  die.  May  death  be  to  our  thought  as  the  soimding  of  the 
trumpet.  May  it  be  to  us  what  the  signal  of  the  morning  is  to  those  who  are 
sick,  and  who  have  tossed  vrearily  on  their  couch  through  the  night.  As 
thou  art  making  heaven  richer  by  drawing  and  hiding  there  our  dearest 
ones ;  as  thou  art  putting  our  treasure  there,  and  teaching  our  willing  hearts 
to  go  thitherward,  so  grant  that  the  joy  of  expected  release  and  of  certain 
triumph,  and  of  anticipated  treasure,  may  comfort  us  on  the  way.  And 
though  hitherward  it  may  seem  dark  and  forbidding,  wilt  thou,  by  the  light 
of  thy  countenance,  take  away  from  us  fear,  and  give  us  courage  and  hope. 
And,  at  last,  when  we  go  home,  may  it  be  with  shoutings  of  that  grace  which 
sustains  us.  And  as  our  voices  die  away  on  earth,  may  they  mingle  with  the 
choral  voices  in  heuv(  n. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  ijraises  immortal.    Amen. 


XIX. 

What  is  the  Profit  of  Godliness? 


¥HAT  IS  THE  PEOFIT  OF  GOD- 
LINESS % 


"  For  bodily  exercise  proflteth  little ;  but  godliness  is  profitable  unto  all 
things,  having  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is,  and  of  that  which  is  to  come.*' 
1  Tim.  IV.  8. 


The  apostle,  writing  to  Timothy,  who  was  the  bishop  of  the 
Greek  Church  iu  Asia  Minor,  had  his  eyes  iipon  the  athletic  drill 
and  discipline  which  prevailed  among  the  Greeks,  and  which  was  an 
important  part  of  the  education  of  their  youth.  Various  games  and 
contests,  success  in  which  turned  upon  physical  accomplishment, 
had  led  men  to  put  upon  them  an  unwarrantable  estimate.  And 
when  the  apostle  says  that  "  bodily  exercise  profiteth  little  "  (or  a 
little  wltile,  as  the  margin  has  it),  he  evidently  refers  to  that  phys- 
ical culture  which  prevailed  in  Greece — to  a  degree,  perhaps,  which 
has  never  been  equaled  since. 

"  Godliness,"  he  says  (as  if  it  were  something  distinguished  from 
this  exterior  development)  "  is  profitable  unto  all  things, — and  for  two 
reasons.  It  carries  with  it  profit,  prosperity,  iu  the  life  that  now 
is,  as  well  as  the  promise  and  certainty  of  the  life  that  is  to  come." 

That  men,  by  godliness,  should  reap  a  fruition  and  harvest  here- 
after, is  not  surprising  to  those  who  have  at  all  been  instructed  in 
religious  things ;  but  there  are  many  who  have  supposed  that  god- 
liness was  in  a  man's  way  here  ;  that  so  far  from  being  profitable  in 
all  things,  it  stood  right  in  the  path  of  those  who  would  reap  honors 
and  worldly  good.  Yet,  our  text  makes  the  declaration  without 
exception,  that  it  "is  profitable  unto  all  things,  having  promise  ol 
the  life  that  now  is,  as  well  as  of  that  wliich  is  to  come." 

What  is  yoilUness  9  If  it  meant  merely  that  a  man  has  reverence, 
and  that  he  prefers  the  appropriate  duties  of  worship,  there  might 
seem  very  little  reason  for  supposing  that  that  would  stand  con- 

SuNDAY  Evening,  July  7,  1872.   Lesson  :  PsA.  XLEt.    Htmns  (Plymouth  CoUectlon) 
Noe.  903.  72a. 


350  WJSA T  IS  TEE  PEOFIT  OF  GODLINESS  f 

nected  witli  great  i:)rosperity  in  worldly  things.  It  might  be  be- 
coming, and  worship  might  even  be  regarded  as  accomplished  by 
it ;  but  that  simply  being  a  worshiping  creature  should  materially 
affect  a  man's  worldly  prosperity,  does  not  appear  so  plain.  I  appre- 
hend that  godliness  means  a  great  deal  more  than  that.  It  includes 
that ;  but  godliness  is  conformity  to  the  whole  constitution  of 
things  which  God  has  decreed  and  marked  out.  In  other  words, 
living  according  to  nature  (interpreting  that  word  nature  in  its 
higher  sense)  is  living  according  to  God's  law.  He  who  conforms 
to  the  laws  by  which  God  has  surrounded  him  in  the  natural  world 
and  in  human  society ;  he  who  is  spiritually  conformable  to  the 
divine  law,  and  who  is  in  all  things  liviug  as  far  as  he  can  accord- 
ing to  the  divine  prescription,  shall  be  prospered  in  the  life  that 
now  is,  as  well  as  inherit  the  life  that  is  to  come.  So  that  godliness 
means  something  more  than  merely  religion,  in  the  narrow  and 
technical  sense  of  the  term.  It  means  having  a  wise  view  of  all  the 
laws  of  our  being  and  condition,  and  living  in  conformity  to  them. 

Moreover,  when  it  is  said  that  it  has  in  it  "the  promise  of 
the  life  that  now  is,"  we  are  not  to  narrowly  interpret  this.  We 
ought  not  to  suppose  that  a  man  will  be  prospered  in  everything 
that  he  'wants  to  prosper  in,  or  that  if  a  man  unwisely  chooses  a 
profession  or  walk  in  life,  and  seeks  it  from  the  mere  fact  of  godli- 
ness, he  will  inherit  success.  For  instance,  if  a  man  who  has  not 
one  natural  gift  of  the  orator  should  seek  celebrity  and  poAver  by 
oratory,  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  would  succeed  merely 
from  the  circumstance  of  his  being  godly  ?  A  man,  with  a  clumsy 
hand,  without  skill,  and  without  inventive  thought,  is  not  justified 
in  attempting  to  be  an  inventor  simply  on  the  general  ground  of 
godliness.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  a  man  who  has  no  commer- 
cial training  is  to  plunge  into  business  and  make  this  plea:  "I  live 
in  conformity  to  the  laws  of  my  being,  and  shall  be  prospered  in  my 
pursuits." 

We  are  to  have  a  larger  idea  of  prosperity  than  is  seen  in  any 
of  these  special  things.  For,  although  even  where  men  are  badly 
matched  with  their  affairs,  right  living  will  make  disaster  more 
bearable  and  less  mischievous;  although  the  godly  man  will,  with 
ill  success,  reap  more  and  better  things  than  the  ungodly  man  with 
good  success,  yet,  we  must  take  a  larger  view  of  what  success  in  life 
is,  and  of  what  godliness  will  do  for  men.  That  which,  on  the 
whole,  promotes  their  greatest  happiness,  must  be  considered.  Their 
prosperity  now  means  their  Avelfare.  It  does  not  consist  in  the  de- 
velopment of  any  one  part  of  their  nature,  but  the  whole  of  it. 

Godhness  has  an  immediate  relation  to  that  which  is  the  foun- 


WHAT  18  THE  PROFIT  OF  GODLINESS  f  351  ' 

dation  of  all  enjoyment — a  good,  sound,  bodily  condition.  What 
profits  it  that  a  man  has  art,  beauty,  symmetry, — an  abundance  of 
exquisite  things  about  him,  if  he  be  blind?  What  profits  it  that  a 
man  is  able  to  surround  himself  with  delightful  music,  if  he  be 
deaf?  What  profits  it  if  the  dance  goes  on  day  and  night  in  a 
man's  halls,  through  the  varying  holidays,  if  he  be  laid  up  with, 
rheumatism  or  gout,  and  cannot  even  move  in  his  chair  ?  What 
profits  it  that  a  man  has  stored  in  his  mind  learning — wonderful 
masses  of  learning — if  his  health  be  so  broken  down  that  his  physi- 
cian refuses  him  both  book  and  thought?  The  condition  of  enjoy- 
ment in  this  life  is,  that  one  is  in  a  sound  state  of  bodily  health. 
Godliness,  or  a  conformity  to  the  great  laws  of  our  condition,  in- 
cludes physical  health — works  toward  it. 

Moderation  of  appetite ;  restraint  of  undue  desires ;  that  quiet- 
ness of  spirit  which  comes  from  the  belief  in  an  overruling  Provi- 
dence ;  that  undisturbed  equilibrium  which  comes  from  faith  in 
God — all  these  are,  looking  at  them  in  their  very  lowest  relations-, 
elements  of  health — of  a  sound  physical  condition.  The  influences 
that  undermine  health — the  dissipations,  the  gluttonies,  the  drunk- 
ennesses, the  excessive  pleasures  which  drain  out,  prematurely,  the 
vitality  of  men — these  are  forbidden  by  a  wise  reference  to  the  laws 
of  our  condition.  And  among  the  things  which  men  at  large  who 
live  godly  lives  will  reap,  and  may  expect  to  reap,  is  good,  sound 
health,  which  i^  a  grand  constituent  of  all  worldly  prosperity. 

Next  consider  how  much  a  man's  happiness  in  this  life  depends 
upon  his  disposition — both  with  reference  to  himself  and  with  refer- 
ence to  his  social  surrounding.  It  is  not  Avhat  you  have  about  you, 
but  what  you  are,  that  determines  how  happy  you  shall  be.  If  you 
are  envious  and  jealous,  you  cannot  be  happy — not  uutil  bitter  is 
sweet;  not  until  black  is  white.  If  you  have  malign  feelings  up- 
permost, they  will  always  be  corrosive.  Such  feelings  disqualify 
vou  for  social  enjoyment.  Excessive  pride  takes  away  from  the 
ipower  of  enjoyment.  Excessive  vanity  takes  away  from  the  capacity 
of  enjo3^ing  in  this  life.  Overweening  sensibility,  whether  it 
springs  from  selfishness,  or  from  an  unnatural  development  of 
nerve— whatever  may  be  its  source — acts  to  deprive  men  of  their 
social  enjoyment.  How  much  you  shall  enjoy  depends  on  how 
moderate  you  are  in  your  demands.  If  you  are  of  sucli  a  na- 
ture that  you  think  the  world  Avas  made  for  you ;  and  that,  though 
it  does  carry  along  a  few  other  people,  yet,  in  the  main,  it  is  kept 
up  for  you;  and  that  God,  on  the  whole,  thinks  more  of  you,  or 
ought  to,  at  any  rate,  than  of  all  other  beings— if,  with  this 
sovereign  vanity  and  conceit,  you  are  measuring  what  you  have,  or 


352  WEAT  IS  TEE  PROFIT  OF  G0ELINES8  f 

what  you  ouglit  to  have,  there  will  not  be  a  day  of  the  three  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five  which  will  not  seem  stingy  to  you.  Every  hour 
,that  distils  a  dew-drop  of  mercy  will  seem  to  be  cheating  you  of  the 
floods  of  bounty  which  you  ought  to  have.  Some  men  spend  so 
much  time  measuring  what  they  deserve,  and  what  they  really  have 
or  have  not,  that  they  are  never  happy.  Men  who  are  not  willing 
to  be  content  with  small  measures  of  enjoyment ;  who  are  forever 
making  the  condition  of  their  happiness  lie  before  them ;  who 
never  press  out  the  clusters  and  drink  the  wine  of  their  actual  ex- 
perience, but  are  always  placing  it  far  forward,  and  further  for- 
ward— such  men  cannot  be  happy.  They  have  dispositions  which 
carry  in  -them  the  essential  vice  that  works  toward  misery  and  dis- 
content. 

Some  man  may  say,  "  If  I  were  not  cribbed  and  confined  as  I  am 
here,  and  if  I  had  that  man's  means,  would  not  I  be  happy  ?"  Let 
his  condition  be  changed.  At  night  when  he  is  asleep,  put  him  in 
the  circumstances  of  that  man  whom  he  envied.  While  the  novelty 
lasted  he  might  experience  some  pleasure;  but  no  sooner  would 
he  get  wonted  to  his  new  condition,  than  the  same  causes  which 
wrought  discontent  in  him  in  his  former  state  would  make  him  dis- 
contented still.  You  cannot  make  a  discontented  nature  happy  by 
.covering  it  up  with  silks.  You  might  wear  a  diamond  ring  .on  every 
finger,  and  a  coronet  on  your  head,  and  you  might  be  the  centre  of 
admiration  in  your  circle  ;  but  if  you  had  not  the  quality  of  being 
happy  in  you,  you  would  not  be  happy.  You  cannot,  by  the  abun- 
dance of  the  things  which  he  possesses,  make  a  man  happy. 

Why,  a  child  may  put  its  hand  on  a  harp  that  has  been  chorded 
and  tuned,  and  music  will  come  out  of  it;  but  a  giant  might  smite 
against  the  body  of  an  oak  tree,  and  there  would  be  no  sound  of 
music.  There  is  no  music  in  it.  It  is  the  quality  of  the  thing 
struck  that  determines  whether  it  is  musical  or  not.  The  chords 
are  in  us,  or  nowhere.  If  you  have  not  the  nature  in  you  which 
tends  to  the  production  of  happiness,  all  the  influences  which  you 
can  bring  to  bear  will  not  make  you  happy ;  pleasure  will  bring  no 
melody;  riches  will  bring  no  deep-seated  joy;  and  honors  and  aspi- 
rations will  yield  no  happiness. 

Godliness,  by  its  very  nature,  reduces  a  man  to  a  certain  conform- 
ity with  the  laws  of  his  condition,  and  makes  him  content  therein, 
and  so  works  upon  his  disposition  that  it  becomes  amenable  to  the 
law  of  happiness.  It  is  restrained  in  its  overweening  pride,  or  wide, 
circuiting  vanity,  or  harrowing  discontent.  It  is  made  to  be  more 
childlike  and  simple.  It  is  brought  into  conditions  in  which  hap- 
piness may  distil  upon  it  from  ten  thousand  little  things.     A  man 


WHAT  IS  TEE  PEOFIT  OF  GODLINESS?  353 

who  wishes  to  see  beauty  in  nature  must  not  watch  for  it  in  gor- 
geous sunsets  always — though  they  will  come  once  in  a  while.  Let 
him  watch  for  it  in  ten  million  little  facets  which  glisten  in  the  light' 
of  the  sun,  by  the  roadside  as  well  as  in  the  rich  man's  adorned 
grounds.  We  must  see  it  in  the  motes  and  bugs,  in  the  minutest 
insects,  everywhere. 

So,  then,  we  are  to  reap  happiness  and  satisfaction,  not  so  much 
fi'om  great  cataclysms  and  paroxysms,  as  in  little  things,  that  have 
the  power  to  make  us  supremely  happy. 

Another  thing.  Men's  happiness  depends  more  upon  their  rela- 
tions to  society  than  we  are  apt  to  think.  Where  men  have  the  art 
of  fitting  themselves  to  their  circumstances  and  their  companions, 
there  is  great  satisfaction  in  these  also. 

There  is  a  true  sympathy,  a  true  benevolence,  which  is  godly. 
It  is  the  fruit  of  godliness.  The  not  thinking  of  ourselves  more 
highly  than  we  ought  to  think,  but  thinking  soberly,  as  God  has 
dealt  to  every  man  the  measure  of  faith;  the  giving-aud-taking- 
spirit;  the  art  of  saying  pleasant  things;  the  art  of  not  saying 
disagreeable  things;  in  other  words,  charity,  that  covers  a  multitude 
of  sins,  that  rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  that  rejoicetli  in  the  truth, 
that  beareth  all  things,  that  endureth  all  things,  that  is  not  puffed 
up,  that  doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly — this  is  a  condition  of  great 
enjoyment.  I  think  there  is  to  be  reaped  from  the  face  and  heart 
of  men  great  fruition,  if  one  is  only  in  such  relations  of  sympathy 
■with  them  as  to  avail  himself  of  that  fruition,  which  is  open  to  all. 
Alas  !  there  are  many  persons  who  do  not  know  how  to  carry  them- 
selves among  men ;  who  are  not  interested  in  them ;  who,  for  the 
most  part,  look  upon  them  as  a  carpenter  looks  upon  a  chest  of 
tools — as  cutting  instruments,  which  he  can  use.  If  they  cannot 
use  them,  they  regard  them  as  of  no  value  at  all.  If  when  you  look 
upon  men  you  ask,  "How  much  are  they  worth?  What  can  I  do 
with  them  ?  What  use  can  I  put  them  to  ?"  If  you  go  among  men 
with  a  mean,  selfish  spirit,  how  little  happiness  will  you  find  in  your 
social  intercourse !  But  if  in  the  child  and  in  its  sports,  you  see 
something  to  make  you  smile;  if  toward  the  laboring  man  you  have 
a  kindly  good  will,  and  if  you  find  companionship  with  all  who 
are  virtuous  in  the  various  walks  of  life — with  those  who  are  high 
for  certain  reasons,  and  those  who  are  low  for  certain  other  reasons; 
if  yon  feel  a  generous  brotherhood  and  sympathy  for  men,  then  there 
is  a  vast  deal  of  enjoyment  for  you  in  this  life,  which  comes  simply 
from  your  aptitudes  for  fellowship  and  friendsliip. 

Xow,  it  is  the  peculiar  office  of  a  true  godliness  to  subdue  the 
heart  to  ibis  universal  amnesty  and  sympathy,  so  that  they  who 


354  WE  A  T  IS  TEE  FBOFIT  OF  G  0DLINES8  f 

are  godly,  ■who  live  in  conformity  to  the  will  of  God,  in  all  their 
circumstances,  shall  reap  more  or  less  enjoyment.  Godliness,  by 
changing  men's  condition,  prepares  them  to  be  happy;  and  by  giv- 
ing them  affinities  for  things  about  them  produces  conditions  of 
happiness. 

There  are  also  other  ways  in  which  godliness  works  toward  hap- 
piness. It  gives  to  men  a  motive  in  this  life  without  concentrating  on 
their  worldly  endeavors  the  utmost  of  their  powers.  No  man  can  be 
happy  in  life  without  having  some  business  that  tasks  him;  for  happi- 
ness means  manhood.  Quiescence  brings  no  consciousness  of  en- 
joyment with  it,  though  it  may  bring  great  profit.  But  no  man 
has  a  business  to  which  he  applies  himself  assiduously,  and  which 
he  sees  succeeding,  without  enjoying  himself.  I  do  not  know  that 
there  is  any  better  enjoyment  for  a  man  than  to  have  been  mated 
to  some  vocation  which  suits  his  nature  and  disposition,  to  have 
heartily  accepted  it,  and  to  make  it  the  occasion,  every  day,  of  the 
activity  of  every  part  of  his  nature.  The  outgoing  of  a  man's  own 
self,  legitimately  and  industriously,  with  the  constant  expectation 
of  success — there  is  great  enjoyment  in  this. 

At  the  same  time,  let  this  enjoyment  be  coupled  with  the  moder- 
ating, restraining  feeling  that  if  earthly  enterprises  fail  and  come 
short,  this  world  is  not  the  only  refuge,  and  worldly  affairs  are  not 
the  only  things  of  value — that  though  the  house  perish,  and  the 
garments  be  wasted,  and  the  gold  and  silver  take  wings  and  fly 
away,  and  all  things  perish,  yet  there  is  a  God,  there  is  a  provi- 
dence, there  is  hope,  there  is  a  home,  and  there  is  immortality ;  then 
the  happiness  is  greatly  increased.  If  we  work  within  the  sphere 
of  Christian  faith  in  secular  affairs,  Ave  reap  a  great  degree  of  satis- 
faction in  this  life — more  than  most  men  are  wont  to  reap  from 
their  outward  circumstances. 

Then  there  is  the  consideration  of  those  qualities  which  go  to- 
make  su<ccess  in  business.  Now  I  come  to  that  which  men  call 
"prosperity'' — namely,  succeeding  in  their  affairs,  not  only  so  that 
they  shall  be  able  to  sustain  their  families,  but  so  that  they  shall  be 
able  to  improve  their  condit'ion,  and  be  called  "prosi^erous  men." 

Piety,  especially  in  any  narrow  and  technical  sense  of  the  term, 
does  not  necessarily  make  men  good  business  men.  A  good  busi- 
ness man  is  one  who  has  good  common  sense.  And  common  sense 
is  a  bo7'n  quality.  If  it  be  not  in  you,  I  do  not  know  how  to  help 
you.  If  one  limb  is  shorter  than  another,  we  can  splice  out  the 
shoe  ;  but  if  a  man  is  born  without  common  sense,  I  do  not  know 
of  any  crutch  or  splice  that  Avill  supply  the  lack.  He  must  wiggle 
on  the  best  he  can.     But  the  Word  of  God,  while   it   speaks   of 


WEA  T  IS  TEE  PEOFIT  OF  G ODLINESS  9  355 

"fools,"  of  the  "liecdless,"  of  the  "unwise,"  and  what  not,  hi  the 
main  takes  it  for  granted  that  men  have  common  sense,  or  ad- 
dresses itself  to  men  who  possess  this  quality.  It  does  not  have 
much  to  say  to  your  theology,  or  your  metaphysics,  but  speaks 
mainly  to  your  common  sense. 

When  there  is  this  root-force — good  common  sense — in  men,  then 
godliness — that  is,  self  restraint — a  wise  conformity  to  all  the  known 
laws  of  their  being — does  tend  to  produce  just  those  states  of  mind 
which  in  the  end  result  in  commercial  prosperity. 

In  the  first  place  it  gives  a  man  trustworthiness — a  quality 
which  is  as  rare  as  the  gold  of  Ophir.  A  man  whose  good  judg- 
ment you  can  trust;  whose  honesty  is  sterling]  who  is  just  the 
same  behind  your  back  that  he  is  before  your  face ;  who  loves  his 
neighbors'  affairs  as  if  they  were  his  own ;  who  does  what  he  prom- 
ises to  do;  who  is  faithful,  and  continuous  in  his  fidelity;  in  short, 
who  is  trustworthy — the  j)rice  of  such  a  man  is  above  rubies.  Men 
in  general,  if  you  were  to  put  them  up  at  auction,  might  not  bring 
much. 

A  drove  of  horses  that  came  from  South  America  the  other 
day  was  exposed  for  sale  in  one  of  the  open  lots  of  the  city.  I 
went  to  look  at  them.  They  may  have  been  all  that  they  claimed 
to  be,  but  such  a  scrawny  set  of  skin  and  bone  I  never  saw  before. 
They  Avere  put  up  at  auction,  and  brought  small  prices. 

If  men,  as  they  go,  in  Wall  Street,  were  put  up  at  auction,  I 
do  not  think  they  would  bring  much.  Men  are  not  much  thought 
of,  taking  them  as  they  average.  A  person  would  hesitat-e  about 
bidding  on  them. 

Let  me  have  taken  one  of  those  horses,  and  put  him  in  the 
trainer's  hands,  and  had  his  speed  brought  out  so  that  he  could 
make  his  nine  and  ten  miles  an  hour  on  the  road,  and  then  put  him 
up  at  auction,  and  how  many  bidders  would  there  have  been  !  How 
many  would  have  been  glad  to  possess  him,  and  Avould  have  been 
willing  to  pay  a  good  price  for  him  ! 

The  trouble  is  that  we  do  not  believe  in  men.  They  are  too 
apt  to  be  one-sided.  They  are  swayed  by  circumstances.  They  are 
assailable.  They  are  forgetful.  Tliey  are  untrustworthy.  But 
once  let  a  man  be  known  to  be  of  good  parts,  and  above  suspicion 
or  reproach  or  temptation,  and  there  is  no  gold  that  can  be  weighed 
over  against  him. 

Men  talk  about  being  honest  and  industrious,  and  yet  never 
getting  along  in  life.  You  put  too  higli  an  estimate  upon  your  hon- 
esty. Men  do  not  believe  you  are  as  honest  or  as  faithful  and 
prompt  as  you  believe  yourself  to  be.     But  where  all  the  parts 


356  WEAT  IS  TEE  PBOFIT  OF  GODLINESS 9 

of  a  man  are  morally  sound ;  where  be  is  free  from  vices  of  every 
sort ;  where  lie  has  fidelity,  conscientiousness,  industry,  good  judg- 
ment and  intelligence ;  where  he  is  so  trustworthy  that  you  can 
bring  the  screw  to  bear  upon  him,  and,  though  you  turn  it  never 
60  many  times,  not  be  able  to  break  him  until  you  crush  him  to 
death — he  is  invaluable.  And  I  say  that  just  in  proportion  as  men 
approach  to  that,  they  are  more  and  more  important  in  a  commer- 
cial age,  and  in  a  great  commercial  community. 

Now,  it  is  the  tendency  of  the  ethics  of  Christianity  to  produce 
just  such  men.  If  religion  does  not  produce  them,  it  is  so  far 
spurious  or  imperfectly  administered.  There  is  a  difiFerence  be- 
tween ethical  religion  and  ecclesiastical  and  doctrinal  religion. 
But  where  a  man  has  Christian  ethics ;  where  a  man  is  truth- 
speaking  and  reliable ;  Avhere  a  man  is  founded  upon  the  rock 
Christ  Jesus,  and  cannot  be  moved  from  it,  I  say  that  godliness 
tends  to  success  in  commercial  afiFairs.  I  need  hardly  point 
you  to  the  fact  that  the  classes  from  Avhich  the  prosperous  men  of 
the  community  spring  are  not  the  wild  living.  The  men  who 
honor  God  in  their  households  ;  the  men  whose  children  have  been 
brought  up  to  moderation  of  desire  and  to  self-restraint;  the  men 
whose  children  have  been  taught  weekdays  and  Sundays ;  the 
men  who  believe  in  God,  and  in  responsibility  to  God,  and  are 
sober-minded,  and  have  that  depth  of  earnestness  which  comes 
with  early  teaching  in  religion — these  are  the  men  who  furnish  the 
successful  lawyers  and  merchants  and  business  men  in  every  direc- 
tion. 

If  you  take  the  different  classes  of  religionists,  where  shall  you 
find  more  Christian  ethics  than  among  the  Quakers  ?  Where  shall 
you  find  more  carefulness  in  daily  life  ?  And  among  what  class 
will  you  find  more  Avorldly  prosperity,  and  more  enjoyment  in  it, 
than  among  them  ? 

"When  I  lived  in  the  West,  a  merchant  told  me  that  during 
twenty  years  he  never  suffered  the  loss  of  a  quarter  of  a  dollar 
from  a  whole  Quaker  neighborhood.  You  might  take  whole  settle- 
ments, and  say  that  they  were  exemplifications  of  the  fact  that 
"godliness  is  profitable  unto  all  things,  having  the  promise  of  the 
life  that  now  is,  and  of  that  which  is  to  come." 

So  I  might  go  on  and  reason  almost  endlessly;  but  I  should  be 
met  by  many,  saying,  '•  While  in  a  general  way  this  may  be  true,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  there  are  brilliant  exceptions.  Here  is  a 
man  who  sought  ambition,  and  very  soon  flung  off  all  competitors. 
They  were  too  careful.  They  had  conscience,  and  would  not  climb 
by  the  ways  that  he  resorted  to.  But  he,  being  bold  and  unscrupu- 
lous, climbed,  and  stands  hisfh." 


WE  A  T  IS  THE  PROFIT  OF  0  ODLINESS  9  357 

Ob,  that  you  could  take  down  that  man  -who  stands  so  high ! 
The  man  who  has  risen  in  viohition  of  all  the  commands  of  God, 
who  has  had  some  success  in  the  way  of  a  brilliant  career  in  ambi- 
tion, and  who  now  wields  power — take  him  down  !  Put  his  quali- 
ties ill  the  alembic  and  analyze  them;  enter  into  an  examination 
of  his  nature;  look  at  what  he  is  made  up  of ;  look  at  the  mere 
matters  of  tendency  and  of  enjoyment;  see  whether  that  harsh, 
severe,  burning  spirit  of  his  is  a  prosperous  spirit,  simply  because  he 
has  reached  some  lurid  height,  by  his  overweening  ambition.  Is  he 
prosperous  because  he  has  reached  the  point  that  he  wanted  to 
reach  ?  Is  he  happy  ?  Does  he  bear  the  mark  of  enjoyment  on  hid 
brow'? 

The  saddest  face  that  I  ever  looked  upon,  I  think — the  most 
heart-touching  and  tear-bringing — was  that  of  Daniel  Webster,  as  I 
sat  and  looked  across  at  him,  wlien  he  went  home  to  die,  a  broken- 
hearted man — -a  wreck.  He  had  staked  everything  for  ambition. 
Virtue  was  not  his  besetting  sin.  Although  he  had  a  certain  moral 
admiration,  he  ]iever  had  deep  moral  impulse.  He  did  not  believe. 
He  threw  himself  away  upon  his  ambition,  and  failed.  Although 
he  had  world-wide  renown  as  an  orator  and  statesman,  the  thing  for 
which  he  strove  he  missed  ;  and  he  went  back  disappointed,  sinking 
down  through  step  by  step  of  stimulation,  until  death  closed  the 
sad  and  piteous  scene.  His  was  one  of  the  saddest  lives  in  Ameri- 
can history.  It  would  be  looked  upon  by  many  as  one  of  the  most 
successful  of  lives,  if  a  rewarded  ambition  could  be  regarded  as  being 
success.  He  had  everything  all  the  w'ay  up  except  the  bauble  at  the 
top  which  he  sought.  He  longed  to  be  President,  but  he  could 
not  be.  The  bubble  was  pricked,  and  he  died.  What  sort  of  man- 
hood is  that  which  fails  and  loses  everything  because  any  one  thing 
that  a  man  sought  in  this  large,  round  age,  and  set  his  heart  upon, 
he  could  not  have  ? 

There  is  the  eminent  but  not  honored  name  of  Fisk.  Coming 
down  into  the  city,  he  despised  men,  if  he  did  not  God.  What 
cared  he  for  morality  ?  Where  was  his  godliness.  AVas  there  ever 
a  man  who  lived  so  fast,  and  did  so  much,  and  rose  so  high?  Let 
me  tell  you,  young  men,  that  the  success  of  that  man  did  not  depend 
upon  his  wickedness.  The  reason  why  he  did  succeed  was  that  he 
was  an  exceedingly  able  business  man.  He  had  admirable  qualities 
in  him.  He  was  sensuous  in  his  habits;  but  in  business  matters  he 
was  both  bold  and  cautious.  He  was,  among  his  companions,  a 
man  whose  word  was  to  be  trusted.  He  had  uncommon  adapta- 
tions. His  success  resulted  from  that  which  was  good  in  him  and 
not  from  those  elements  in  him  which  were  bad.     The  Ihingg  that 


358  WITA  T  IS  THE  PEOFIT  OF  GODLINESS  f 

were  bad  in  him  made  his  success  less  brilliant  and  less  enjoyablo. 
It  was  his  vices  that  slew  him.  It  was  his  real  virtues  that  gave 
him  his  eminence.  You  are  fools  if  you  suppose  that  he  succeeded 
because  he  was  bad. 

"Ah,  but,"  you  say,  "that  may  be  the  case  with  some  men  ;  but 
I  do  not  believe  there  was  ever  a  better  man  than  such  and  such  a 
one ;  and  he  Avas  signally  unsuccessful.  If  there  was  ever  a  godly 
man,  he  was  one.  He  used  to  pray  every  morning,  and  distribute 
tracts  every  evening ;  he  used  to  attend  the  prayer-meetings  regu- 
larly, and  participate  in  them ;  he  used  to  do  everything  that  a 
really  godly  man  would  be  expected  to  do;  he  used  to  do  all  he 
could  for  the  good  of  the  community  that  he  was  in." 

All  that  may  be  true ;  but  godliness  does  not  teach  a  crow  to 
sing  like  a  nightingale.  If  a  man  has  gone  into  a  business  which 
he  is  not  fit  for,  he  cannot  make  up  Avhat  he  lacks  by  taking  part  in 
prayer-meetings,  or  distributing  tracts,  or  anything  of  that  kind.  A 
man  must  use  his  good  sense  in  adapting  himself  to  his  business. 
He  must  select  a  business  that  he  is  competent  to  carry  on.  To 
choose  wrongly  in  establishing  one's  self  in  business  is  a  violation  of 
the  law  of  success.  A  man  may  be  qualified  for  one  kind  of  life. 
and  not  for  another.  A  man  may  make  a  good  minister  and  a  poor 
general ;  or,  a  man  may  make  a  good  general  and  a  poor  minister.  A 
man  may  make  a  good  artist  and  a  poor  artisan  or  worker  in 
metals.  Men  must  avoid  those  spheres  for  which  they  have  no 
aptitude.  If  a  man  attempts  to  prosper  in  a  sphere  for  which  he  is 
not  fitted,  piety  will  help  to  supplement  his  weakness,  but  it  will 
not  crown  him  with  commercial  success. 

And  yet,  many  a  man  has  failed  utterly  in  business,  and  his  life 
has  been  a  better  success  than  the  life  of  his  neighbors  who  never 
failed.     I  know  such  men. 

If  I  had  my  choice,  I  would  rather  live  in  a  hovel,  with  a  joy- 
ous, genial,  kind,  cheerful  companion,  in  one  room,  with  all  my 
little  delf  on  one  little  shelf;  one  room,  redolent  every  day  with 
true  enjoyment ;  one  room,  with  the  companionship  of  one  on 
whom  the  morning  came  full  of  brightness  and  sweetness;  one 
room,  and  good  digestion  ;  one  room,  with  songs  enlivening  the 
day ;  one  room,  baptized  by  the  influences  of  religion ;  one  room, 
where  God's  sweet  angel  of  mercy  has  brought  invisible  gifts  that 
never  spend  themselves — if  I  had  my  choice,  I  would  ratlier  live  in 
one  room  in  such  a  hut  than  in  the  resplendent  mansion  through 
which  the  prosperous  man  wallcs,  and  sees  nothing  that  comforts 
him,  and  nothing  that  his  eye  delights  to  look  upon. 

Oh,  that  great,  brilliant,  marble  house  on  the  comer !      Oh, 


WE  A  T  IS  TEE  PBOFIT  OF  G  ODUNESS  ?  359 

the  gallery  of  pictures  that  stands  behind  it!  Oh,  the  magnificent 
glass,  crystal-cut,  that  lets  the  light  through  the  windows — or  would, 
if  it  were  not  for  the  splendid  rags  that  are  hung  up  inside  !  Oh 
the  massive  furniture!  Oh,  the  gorgeous  upholstery!  And  oh, 
the  thin,  stingy  man  who  walks  up  and  down  in  the  midst  of  all 
this  rich  abundance !  Would  you  change  with  him  ?  I  would 
rather  trundle  a  wheelbarrow  than  be  a  curmudgeon  in  what  men 
call  "  prosperity  "  in  this  world.  Money  in  your  pocket  and  hell  in 
your  heart  do  not  make  you  prosperous.  Eeeking  contempt,  rasp- 
ing selfishness,  avarice  that  is  vulgar  and  remorseless — is  that  pros- 
perity? Is  that  what  you  want  to  live  for?  Was  it  for  that  that 
your  dear  mother  brought  you  to  the  baptismal  font?  Was  it  for 
that  that  your  father  uttered  prayers  over  your  head  every  morning  ? 
Was  it  for  that  that  there  were  well-springs  of  sentiment  and  aspi- 
ration opened  when  you  came  into  life?  Was  it  for  that  that  you 
came  down  into  life  with  full  freight  of  anticipation  ?  Was  it  to 
pile  up  money,  and  waste  manhood  ?  Does  prosperity  come  in  that 
way  ?  You  cannot  have  any  prosj^erity  that  corrupts  manhood. 
There  is  nothing  prosperous  which  does  not  make  you  more  than 
you  are. 

Although  a  man  may  fail  in  his  outward  work  in  life,  yet,  when 
you  come  to  one  who  is  called  "  a  prosperous  man,"  you  will  find 
that,  compared  with  him,  the  first  is  the  more  fortunate.  Though  his 
goods  are  gone,  though  he  is  wasted,  though  he  can  no  longer  look 
upon  a  large  exchequer,  and  though  his  expectations  are  disap- 
pointed, yet,  within  he  has  sweet  content.  He  has  gratefulness 
toward  God.  He  has  a  heart  full  of  rebounds  of  sympathy.  He 
has  faith  and  hope  of  the  future.  He  is  waiting  for  his  coronation. 
In  that  land  where  the  gold  shall  never  grow  dim,  nor  lose  its 
luster — there  is  his  home.  And  even  here  he  has  more  of  heaven 
than  the  man  who  is  prosperous  merely  in  worldly  things.  For 
"godliness  is  profitable"  to  him  in  this  life.  He  has  food,  and 
raiment,  and  shelter,  and  friendship,  and  character,  and  men  bow 
respectingly  to  him — and  that  is  enough. 

Many  a  poor  man  goes  along  the  street  whose  name  would  not 
be  worth  a  snap  on  a  note.  He  could  not  get  a  l)a'nk  in  New  York 
to  lend  him  a  hundred  dollars  for  a  month.  He  is  of  no  market 
value  whatever.  But  if  your  dear  child  Avas  dying,  and  you  did  not 
know  how  to  pray,  he  is  the  very  man  that  you  would  send  for. 
You  would  say  to  him,  when  you  were  in  distress,  '*  Come  to  our 
house."'  Ah !  a  man  may  not  have  outward  prosi)crity,  and  yet 
prosper.  He  may  have  that  which  money  cannot  buy — peace,  hap- 
piness, joy.  Tlie  power  of  making  joy  he  has;  and  is  he  not  pros- 
pered ?    Is  he  not  well  off?  ^ 


C60  WHAT  IS  THE  PROFIT  OF  GOBimESSf 

Fiuallyj  taking  society  at  large,  those  wlio  get  the  furthest 
from  the  rules  of  morality;  those  who  have  the  most  doubt  and 
distrust  in  regard  to  the  overruling  providence  of  God;  those 
who  have  a  leaning  to  their  own  wisdom;  those  who  are  proud  and 
selfish,  and  do  what  they  have  a  mind  to  regardless  of  the  welfare 
of  others — they  are  not  preeminently  prosperous,  even  in  material 
and  commercial  things.  On  the  whole,  looking  through  society 
collectively,  that  part  of  society  which  is  most  moral,  Avhich  is  most 
conformable  to  the  Christian  life,  gives  more  instances  of  prosperity 
than  any  other — so  many  more  as  to  be  noteworthy.  And  I  say  to 
all  the  young  in  my  congregation,  "  Do  you  suppose,  if  there  be  a 
God  (and  yon  scarcely  can  doubt  that),  he,  being  the  Governor  over 
this  world,  has  made  holiness  of  heart  the  law  and  duty  of  your 
life,  and  made  the  woiid  so  that  this  holiness  of  heart  shall  be  un- 
congenial with  success  and  run  counter  to  it  ?  Do  you  suppose  that 
his  laws  are  so  ordained  that  prosperity  will  never  follow  obedience? 
Do  you  suppose  he  reverses  in  grace  what  he  legislates  in  nature  ? 
No.  The  God  Avho  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  and  governs 
them  both,  and  will  one  day  bring  you  into  judgment,  with  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth — the  quick  and  the  dead — he  has  declared  that 
"  Godliness  is  2Jrofit(ible  unto  all  tilings  ;  having  promise  of  the  life 
that  noio  is,  and  of  that  ivhich  is  to  come" 


WEAT  IS  TEE  PBOFIT  OF  GODLINESS?  361 


PKAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  draw  near  to  thee,  our  heavenly  Father,  with  thanksgiving  for  thy 
mercies.  Thou  hast  heard  our  prayer,  and  hast  blessed  the  day.  Thou  hast 
irawn  near  to  us,  and  caused  us  to  draw  near  to  thee.  Thou  has  given  us 
okens  of  victory.  Thou  hast  spread  abroad  in  our  hearts  that  spirit  which 
orings  forth  love.  And  we  have  rejoiced  in  thee.  We  thank  thee  for  that 
light  which  comes  by  faith  and  hope,  which  cheers  us  in  our  mortal  course, 
which  sheds  abroad  light  upon  our  affection  and  upon  every  duty,  and  which 
makes  the  day,  and  even  the  darkness,  light. 

And  now,  O  Lord,  we  desire,  this  evening,  to  make  mention  of  thy  good- 
ness. AVe  desire  to  be  familiar  with  the  humble  boldness  mth  which  thou 
hast  invited  us  to  draw  near  to  thee.  Thou  knowest  our  iunermost  wants— 
those  which  are  most  secreted,  which  no  mortal  eye  can  behold,  and  which 
we  cannot  tell  to  any  though  we  would.  All  is  open  before  thee.  Yea,  more 
plainly  are  we  read  by  thee  than  we  are  recognized  by  ourselves.  And  we 
beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  unto  us,  by  thy  Spirit,  not  the  things 
supplicated,  but  the  things  needed.  Guide  our  petitions  day  by  day,  that 
we  may  ask  what  we  really  need ;  that  we  may  not  plead  our  desires  simply ; 
that  we  may  not  mistake  our  own  best  good.  May  we  be  able,  every  day, 
to  say.  Thy  will  be  done,  and  to  accept  the  evolution  of  thy  providence  as 
an  iudication  of  thy  will,  and  in  all  circumstances  to  And  therein  content- 
ment. May  we  rejoice  to  believe  that  our  life  is  in  a  school,  and  that  thou 
art  dealing  Avith  us  both  as  a  parent  and  as  a  teacher,  and  that  we  are  learn- 
ing by  the  things  which  we  suffer,  and  by  the  thmgs  which  we  enjoy.  And 
so  may  there  be  a  meaning  of  life  to  us  more  than  that  which  the  world  can 
give.  Interpret  to  us  thy  dealings  thus  through  our  inward  experience. 
May  we  learn  patience,  and  hope,  and  faith,  and  perseverance.  May  we 
learn,  from  day  to  day,  gentleness,  and  meekness,  and  forbearance  one  with 
another,  and  all  humbleness  of  mind,  as  becomes  those  who  are  living  upon 
God's  forgiveness  and  mercy.  And  yet,  while  we  are  hnmble  in  view  of  our 
unworthiness,  may  we  feel  the  exaltation  and  inspiration  which  there  is  in 
our  petitions  to  thee  as  children,  adopted  into  thy  family,  made  hcii-s  of  the 
eternal  blessedness  of  heaven,  and  in  commerce  with  thee.  May  we  lift  up 
our  heads.  May  we  rejoice  that  nothing  can  harm  us.  AVho  shall  separate 
us  from  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  ?  More  and  more  may  we  lay  hold 
upon  thy  precious  promises  and  assin-ances.  More  and  more  may  we  seek  to 
make  our  life  worthy  of  this  relationship.  Help  us  to  overcome  our  easily- 
besetting  sins.  IIolp  us  to  recognize  the  thiugs  in  us  which  are  vain,  or 
proud,  or  sellish,  or  worldly,  in  any  undue  form.  Help  us  rightly  to  live. 
May  we  be  able  to  overcome  evil.  May  we  be  able  to  strive  against  all  things 
which  defile,  or  which  mar  the  innity  of  our  spirit,  so  that  thou  mayest  dwell 
with  us.  When  we  thiuk  what  corjpany  thou  umst  keep  to  dwell  in  us,  we 
shrink  at  the  boldness  of  aslcing  thee  to  enter  such  hearts  as  ours.  O  grant 
that  there  may  be  in  us  courage  of  thought  and  nobility  of  soul.  Be  thou 
in  us,-so  to  elevate  and  establish  us  'n\  all  things  which  are  good,  that  thou 
mayest  be  able  to  take  complaisance  in  us. 

We  pray,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  wilt  help  us  every  day  to  remember 
our  duty.  May  we  cease  to  do  the  things  which  are  harsh  and  pain-bearing. 
Lf  it  be  thy  will,  may  we  seek,  day  by  day,  as  good  soldiers,  to  do  the  thiugs 
which  are  most  righteous.  May  we  rejoice  in  rest  and  in  ease  when  thou 
givest  it  to  us;  but  may  we  willingly  meet  thy  north-wind  and  thy  winter, 
and  bear  hardness  as  good  soldiers,  when  thou  dost  send  them. 

W(?  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  u])on  any  that  are  in 


362  WHAT  IS  THE  FBOFIT  OF  GODLINESS? 

thy  presence,  severally,  as  thou  sccst  that  they  need.  "We  pray  that  thou 
wilt  comfort  those  who  need  consolation.  Enlighten  those  who  are  stumbling 
in  dai'kness.  Guide  ayight  those  who  are  unceitaiu  of  the  way.  Inspire  with 
the  beginnings  of  new  life  those  who  are  dead  in  trespasses  and  in  sins.  Wilt 
thou  grant  that  those  who  are  discouraged,  by  many  futile  efforts,  from 
living  a  better  life,  may  gird  up  their  loins  again,  and  persevere  to  the  end. 
Be  with  all  those  who  are  bearing  the  biu'dens  of  life,  and  exercised  by  its 
cares  and  responsibiUties.  May  they  seek  everywhere  to  so  carry  themselves 
that  they  shall  be  worthy  to  wear  the  name  of  Christ. 

Bless  all  the  churches  of  this  city.  Wilt  thou  guard  their  interests.  May 
their  membership  increase.  Grant  that  their  counsel  in  things  good  may  be 
wise,  and  that  they  may  be  united  more  and  more  perfectly  to  each  other. 
May  thy  kingdom  come  everywhere,  under  all  forms.  We  pray  for  the 
advance  of  intelligence  and  justice  and  humanity.  ■  May  the  nations  of  the 
earth  cease  to  contend.  May  they  learn  war  no  more.  May  force  and  vio- 
lence perish.  May  the  spirit  of  truth  and  equity  prevail  in  all  the  earth,  and 
thy  name  be  glorified  among  thy  people.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and 
the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  everlasting.    Amen. 


PEAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thy  blessing  may  rest  upon  the  word 
spoken.  Grant  that  we  may  have  faith  in  thee  and  in  thy  promises.  May 
we  not  be  weary  in  well-doing.  May  we  not  distrust  thee.  May  we  trust  in 
the  Lord,  and  do  good.  Though  the  wicked  seem  to  prosper,  and  though 
violence,  and  pride,  and  ravening  and  discontented  avarice,  seem  to  have 
their  way,  yet  may  we  wait  and  see  the  frowning  of  thy  providence  beat 
down  these  usurpers.  May  we  behold  how,  in  the  day  and  in  the  night,  and 
in  the  periods  through  which  thy  plans  ran,  thou  art  exalting  the  humble, 
and  blessing  the  poor,  and  crowning  with  success  those  who  are  willing  t-o  be 
moderate  in  their  desires,  and  making  the  happiness  of  the  earth  in  its  low 
places. 

We  pray,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  we  may  have  faith  to  believe,  not  only 
in  respect  to  the  world  to  come,  but  in  regard  to  the  world  that  no  w  is,  that 
thou  art  a^lministering  for  our  good. 

Bless  the  young.  May  they  make  no  mistakes  in  the  beginning  of  their 
life.  May  they  take  straight  lines.  May  they  walk  in  ways  of  righteousness. 
May  they  be  truthful.  May  they  be  upright.  May  they  be  honorable  before 
God,  and  in  the  sight  of  men.  And  we  pray  that  they  may  not  be  deluded 
with  a  desire  for  sudden  riches  unearned.  May  we  not  seek  to  break  into 
the  house  of  fortune  and  get  our  robber-goods.  May  we  be  willing  to  sweat 
and  toil,  and  strive,  and  Avait  for  their  prospeiity,  so  that  when  it  comes  they 
shall  be  inured  to  it,  and  not  ruined  by  it. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  convoy  us  safely  through  life.  And 
when  these  mortal  scenes  shall  pass,  bring  near  the  vision  of  the  blessed 
land.  And  into  it  may  we  enter,  not  as  by  fire,  but  triumphing,  met  and 
greeted  by  those  whom  we  have  helped  upon  earth,  and  by  those  who  have 
helped  us  in  heaven,  and  by  thee,  O  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.    Amen. 


XX. 

The  Religion  of  Hope. 


INVOCATION. 

Grant  us  thy  blessing?,  our  Father;  for  by  thine  invitation  we  have  come 
hither.  We  yearn  for  thy  presence,  we  feel  the  drawing  of  thy  Spirit ;  and 
this  is  thine  invitation.  Help  us,  then,  to  rise  r.bove  care  and  trouble.  Call 
back  our  thought  from  all  painful  I'etrospect.  Give  us  this  day  to  look  for- 
ward by  hope  and  Ijy  faith,  and  to  discern  thee,  and  tlie  realm  where  thou 
art,  and  to  take  possession  befoi*ehand  somewhat,  of  those  joys  which  await 
us  there.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  accept  the  offerings  which  we  bring  thee — 
not  servile  nor  enforced  offerings,  but  the  risings  up  of  tender  thoughts,  and 
grateful  memories ;  the  inspiration  in  our  hearts  of  reverence  and  gladness 
before  thee.  And  having  refreshed  our  spirits  m  thine,  may  we  return  more 
faithful  ill  friendship,  more  disinterested  in  kindness,  more  interested  one 
for  another;  and  may  we  receive  that  strength  in  the  sanctuary  which  shall 
make  us  competent  for  all  the  sufferings  and  duties  of  the  week  which  is 
before  us,  and  of  life  itself.  Hear  us  in  these  our  petitions,  for  Christ's  Jteke- 
Amen. 

20. 


THE  EELI&IOI  OF  HOPE. 


"  For  we  are  saved  by  hope ;  but  hope  that  is  seen  is  not  hope ;  f  dr  what  a 
man  seeth,  why  doth  he  yet  hope  for?"— Rom.  VIII.  24. 


Not  only  is  the  eighth  of  Romans  the  most  profound  in  its 
interpretation  of  the  higher  forms  of  spiritual  life,  but  in  no  other 
part  of  the  New  Testament  that  I  know  of  is  there  so  profound 
and  afl'ecting  a  view  of  the  condition  of  men  under  nature.  In 
the  context  the  apostle  says,  "  We  know  that  the  v/hole  creation 
groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  until  now.  And  not  only  they, 
but  ourselves  also,  which  have  the  first  fruits  of  the  Spirit,  even  we 
ourselves  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for  the  adoption,  to-wit, 
the  redemption  of  our  body." 

Then  comes  the  text — "For  we  are  saved  by  hope,"  etc. 

The  apostle,  then,  has  a  full  recognition  of  the  mysteries  of  life 
and  of  the  struggles  of  life — especially  as  they  turn  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  character.  All  the  perplexities  which  arise,  the  aspirations, 
the  self-condemnation,  the  yearnings,  the  disappointments,  the  con- 
flicts which  men  have  through  their  imagination  and  in  the  whole 
realm  of  conscience,  come  up  before  the  apostle's  mind ;  and  the 
way  out  of  them  is  by  the  portal  of  hope.  The  Christian  scheme, 
as  it  is  centered  in  love,  is  characterized,  throughout,  by  the  element 
of  hope.  Nor  do  I  know  of  any  other  development  of  religious  feel- 
ing that  has  taken  on  a  systematic  form  in  the  world,  which  has  had 
hope  for  its  genius  and  its  distinctive  peculiarity. 

There  has  been  a  struggle  toward  a  universal  religion  in  all  na- 
tions more  or  less  imperfectly  developed,  usually  organized  around 
some  one  or  two  of  the  great  passions  or  sentiments  of  human 
nature.  Fear  has  been  the  most  universal  impulse.  In  almost  all 
tlie  religions  outside  of  Christianity,  and  to  a  large  extent  in  the 
preliminary  developments  of  Cliristianity  under  the  system  of  the 
Jews,  fear  held  a  preponderant  position.  And  to-day,  men  worship, 
throughout  the  globe,  for  fear  of  the  gods.     They  deny  themselves 

Sunday  Mohnino,  July  7, 1872.  Lesson  :  Bom.  Vni.  »-39.   Hymns  (Plymouth  CoUcctlonj 
Nos.  78, 604. 


366  TEE  BELIGION  OF  HOPE. 

pleasures,  or  tlicy  take  on  unwelcome  duties,  under  the  impulse  of 
fear.  This  is  a  motive  of  great  consequence;  but  it  is  intrinsically 
low  in  the  moral  scale.  So  long  as  men  are  what  they  now  are,  they 
never  will  get  along  without  the  principle  of  fear.  It  is  scarcely  to 
be  conceived  that  anybody  Avill  rise  so  high  in  the  scale  as  not  to 
have  fear,  either  in  its  latent  and  indirect  or  in  its  open  action 
The  lower  men  are,  the  more  positive  must  fear  be  in  them. 

Tlie  neglect  of  duties  or  insjoirations  of  duty  must  be  accom- 
panied with  such  a  vivid  and  distinct  sense  of  fear  as  to  wake  up 
the  dormant  and  comparatively  inelastic  and  insensitive  natures 
of  undeveloped  men.  But  as  men  grow  in  culture,  fear  assumes  less 
and  less  a  distinct  and  overt  form,  or  becomes  latent.  For  instance, 
it  is  fear  of  hunger  to-morrow  that  drives  the  savage  to  the 
least  industry  to-day.  But  as  w^e  become  civilized,  wo  do  not 
earn  our  daily  bread  by  the  direct  impulse  of  fear,  but  from 
an  indirect  and  latent  form  of  it.  We  are  not  conscious  of  it  until 
"we  analyze  ourselves,  and  bring  it  up  to  the  surface.  But  willi  the 
love  of  activity,  with  the  impulse  of  ambition,  with  all  the  variety 
of  motives  which  inspire  industry,  there  is  also  a  cautionary  feeling. 
And  when  fear  has  taken  the  shape  of  caution,  it  is  an  element 
of  sagacity  and  discrimination,  and  works  in  almost  all  proportions, 
with  almost  all  faculties,  and  does  not  work  solely  and  sovereignly 
in  and  of  its  own  self 

Eeligion  in  its  earlier  stages  derives  important  help  from  fear ; 
and  as  men  are  uncultured  there  must  be  more  and  more  of  it. 
That  part  of  religion  and  those  aspects  of  government  which  take 
hold  on  fear  become  more  and  more  imperative  as  you  go  down  the 
scale,  and  as  moral  sensibility  wanes ;  and  when  you  come  to  the 
point  where  men  iire  but  little  better  than  animals,  you  cannot  gov- 
ern them  in  any  other  way  than  that  in  Avhich  you  govern  animals. 
As  it  is  the  goad  and  the  whip  that  stir  up  the  lazy  ox,  so  it  must 
be  the  goad  and  the  Avhip  that  shall  produce  moral  sensibility  in 
men  who  are  but  little  above  the  ox.  But  as  you  rise  from  this  low 
condition,  the  number  of  possible  motives  increases,  and  you  can 
■work  the  same  and  better  results  by  anotlier  and  ascending  class 
of  stimulants,  till  by  and  by  men  lose  a  consciousness  of  fear,  al- 
though in  a  minor  and  covert  way  it  is  still  brought  to  bear  upon 
them. 

But  when  fear  is  the  generic  impulse  of  religion,  religion  is 
usually  superstitious.  It  seldom  exalts  the  cluiracter.  It  may  serve 
to  correct  in  men  some  external  and  more  glaring  crimes  and  vices 
and  sins,  but  it  never  makes  rich  manhood.  Fear  never  wove  a 
character  full  of  curious  threads  and  ligures.     It  is  a  coarse-handed. 


THE  .BELIGION  OF  HOPE.  367 

^tFong-pdlnied,  but  not  skillfiil-fiugered,  causation.  If  you  are  to 
make  men  large,  full  in  the  subtle  elements  of  character,  some 
higher  inspiration  than  fear  is  necessary  to  be  their  schoolmaster. 

In  all  religions  conscience,  too,  has  been  a  fundamental  element. 
It  is  a  fundamental  element  in  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  required 
in  directing  practical  efforts.  It  is  emploj'ed  to  hold  in  subjection 
men's  impetuous  and  inharmonious  passions. 

Conscience  is  the  sense  of  right,  with  the  corresponding  sense 
of  the  reverse — wrong.  But  when  it  is  enlightened,  when  it  acts 
under  the  influence  of  reason,  and  in  connection  with  the  imagina- 
tion, and  with  an  idealized  sense  of  the  divine  law,  and  of  the  pos- 
sibilities of  human  character,  it  can  never  bring  peace ;  it  can  never 
produce  happiness. 

The  whole  seventh  of  Romans  is  occupied  with  the  natural  history 
of  a  conscientious  man  who  is  determined  to  be  hapj^y  in  the  at- 
tempt to  live  rightly;  and  we  see  the  fruit  of  it.  "When  a  man  acts 
under  the  influence  of  conscience,  the  law,-  to  him,  is  higher  at 
every  step  than  his  fulfillment  of  it.  Conscience  grows  in  its 
requisitions  faster  than  human  life  can  fulfill  them.  A  low  con- 
science may  not  trouble  one;  but  a  conscience  that  is  idealized 
or  enlightened  Avill  be  at  once  the  provocation  and  the  mockery 
of  every  man's  attempt  to  live  a  high  and  resplendently  holy  life. 
There  can  be  no  settled  peace  built  upon  conscience,  in  the  higher 
forms  of  Christian  living.  It  is  the  popular  saying  that  no  man 
can  be  happy  who  has  not  a  sound  conscience,  and  that  if  a  man 
has  a  sound  conscience  he  need  not  fear  anybody.  This  is  true  in 
men's  civil  relations.  We  do  not  need  to  fear  the  law  when  we  have 
our  conscience  on  our  side.  If  a  man  has  fulfilled  the  duties  which 
are  imposed  upon  him  b}''  the  laws  of  the  land  and  his  social  re- 
lations, and  has  a  conscience  void  of  offense,  he  is  without  that  solici- 
itude  which  men  excite  among  each  other.  When,  however,  he  con- 
templates not  the  ideal  of  civil  law,  nor  that  of  social  or  public 
sentiment,  but  develops  before  his  mind  the  divine  ideal  of  char- 
acter, the  inward  life,  the  richness  and  depth  and  perfectness  and 
sweetness  and  lovableness  of  true  manhood;  when  he  unites  in  his 
thought  the  two  worlds — the  physical  world  with  its  develop- 
ments, and  the  spiritual  world  with  its  elements — and  brings  the 
Divine  nature  itself  beneath  the  horizon,  then,  if  he  attempts  to 
live  a  perfect  life  as  indicated  by  this  higher  rule  or  ideal,  conscience 
must  forever  be  his  tormentor.  We  never  can  be  as  good  as  we 
think  we  ought  to  be.  We  never  are  as  fine  as  our  conscience  in- 
terprets refinement  to  be.  We  never  are  as  pure  as  our  conception 
of  purity.    We  never  gain  such  control  of  our  passions  that  they 


368  IHE  BELIGION  OF  HOPE. 

do  not  have  their  throbs  and  fevers.  We  are  forever  under  the 
dominion,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  our  lower  nature ;  and  if  a  man's 
peace  is  to  be  derived  from  the  testimony  of  his  conscience  that  he 
is  perfect,  peace  will  be  unknown  to  him.  N"ay,  there  have  been  no 
more  affecting  instances  of  a  Avant  of  peace  than  those  which  have 
been  develoised  in  the  experience  of  righteous  men — men  who  were 
putting  forth  every  power  of  their  nature  to  live  justly,  but  who  had 
in  themselves  testimony  that  they  were  falling  short  in  every  point 
of  their  ideal.  If  religion  centers  on  conscience  you  cannot  derive 
the  element  of  peace  from  it.  You  can  get  inspiration  enough, 
quickening  enough,  stimulus  enough, — but  not  peace. 

Now,  no  scheme  is  Christian  whose  predominant  results  are  not 
recognized.  Developed  natures  are  more  subject  to  disturbance  than 
natures  that  are  undeveloped.  All  natural  religions  bring  men 
so  far  along  as  to  disquiet  them.  Tliey  bring  them  so  far  as  to 
raise  in  them  an  ambition  of  goodness,  and  an  aspiration  toward 
goodness,  such  that  they  make  the  most  potent  eftbrts  toward  it; 
but  all  mere  natural  religion  stops  short  of  producing  the  condi- 
tions of  peace  in  men.  Christianity  alone  secures  peace.  The 
genius  of  Christ's  religion  is  to  yield  what  the  apostle  callsj  "  The 
fruit  of  the  Spirit."  When  the  Spirit  has  carried  religion  to  its 
ripeness  so  that  it  bears  fruit,  what  is  that  fruit  ?  It  is  love,  joy, 
and  peace — the  three  elements  which  are  scarcely  to  be  found  in 
the  results  of  any  natural  system  of  religion — love  universal ,'  joy, 
of  which  there  is  more  seed  planted  and  less  reaped  than  of  any 
other  quality  in  the  universe ;  and  peace,  which  sleep  cannot  bring, 
nor  the  will  enforce,  nor  any  ingenuity  or  curious  contrivance  distil 
upon  the  soul,  but  which,  if  it  come  at  all,  must  come  from  the 
heavenly  realm.  Men  can  sooner  divide  witli  their  hands  the 
moisture  of  the  seas,  and  scatter  it  abroad  and  bedew  the  flowers 
with  its  gracious  night-chrism,  than  they  can  give  peace  to  their 
fellow  men.  We  can  give  excitement,  we  can  give  some  forms  of 
rude  joy;  but  a  settled  indwelling  and  abiding  peace — who  can 
bring  it  to  himself,  or  give  it  to  another  ? 

The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  as  opposed  to  the  whole  flow  of 
natural  selfishness;  joy,  as  opposed  to  the  sadness  which  proceeds 
from  the  constant  misinterpretations  and  mistakes  of  life ;  and, 
more  strange  than  all,  in  this  vast  creation  which  hath  been  groan- 
ing and  travailing  in  pain  until  now — peace.  And  it  is  the  genius 
of  Christianity  that  it  has  the  power  to  produce  love  and  joy  and 
peace.  And  if  Christianity  produces  these,  it  must  produce  them 
with  all  the  facts  of  man's  organization  and  condition  in  view — - 
it  must  be  because  there  is  in  the  God  who  constructed  the  world 


TEE  EELIGION  OF  HOPE.  3G9 

and  its  system,  and  avIio  lias  revealed  the  Cliristian  faith,  a  nature 
that  stands  over  against  the  facts  and  conditions  of  men  so  as  to  be 
in  sympathetic  adaptation  to  them.  It  fits  the  actual  facts  in  the 
human  condition,  as  will  fall  out  in  this  discussion. 

The  production  of  this  fruit — love,  joy,  and  peace — will  throw 
remarkable  light,  then,  upon  the  nature  of  Christianity,  when  we 
consider  Avhat  a  state  of  things  Christianity  is  designed  to  deal  with. 

Consider,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  is  not  a  gloziug  compromise; 
that  it  is  not  a  system  of  indifierence  which  tends  to  make  it  a 
matter  of  unimportance  whether  a  man  is  good  or  bad.  Righteous- 
ness has  nowhere  else  such  intense  motives  as  in  Christianity.  No- 
where else  is  it  required  that  manhood  should  be  made  up  of  such 
precious  materials ;  that  it  should  rise  "so  high ;  or  that  it  should 
be  so  comprehensive.  Nowhere  else  is  the  aim  of  living  made  so 
conspicuous — namely,  the  perfection  of  men  in  Christ  Jesus. 
Whereas  in  other  religions  men  are  made  perfect  in  their  relations 
with  each  other  by  an  outward  morality  and  a  condition  of  good 
citizenship,  Christianity  counts  these  things  as  mere  rough  foun- 
dations, and  demands  that  a  man  should  be  made  perfect  in  the 
interior  life ;  in  the  range  and  reach  of  the  imagination ;  in  the 
whole  round  of  the  intellect;  in  the  whole  crystal  palace  of  the 
moral  sentiments.  He  is  there  to  be  so  molded,  educated,  har- 
monized, balanced,  sweetened,  perfected,  that  he  shall  stand  up  as  a 
son  of  God,  perfect  in  Christ  Jesus.  A  man  may  be  endowed  with 
just  such  faculties  as  we  are,  and  yet  they  may  be  carried  so  high, 
and  attuned  so  perfectly,  and  made  so  continuously  productive  and 
symmetrical,  that  he  is  fit  to  be  called,  in  one  sense,  equal  with 
Jesus  Christ — that  is,  a  fellow-heir  with  him ;  one  among  so  many 
brothers  adopted  into  God's  household,  with  Christ  as  an  elder 
brother,  and  standing  alongside  of  him,  being  possessed  of  a  like 
character  or  nature. 

Here  is  a  high  aim.  It  has  no  conformity  with  a  low  estate,  nor 
toleration  of  it.  It  is  not  content  with  a  mere  worldly  prosperity. 
The  manhood  which  Christianity , inspires  and  contemplates  and 
demands,  is  the  highest  manhood  conceivable. 
■  Consider,  next,  what  is  that  condition  of  things  into  which  men 
come  in  this  world.  Every  man  is  born  into  the  world  without  his 
own  leave.  He  cannot  take  his  pick  of  the  faculties  that  he  will 
bring,  but  awakes  what  he  is.  His  nature  is  determined,  not  by 
his  will,  but  by  laws  occult  and  unknown.  Every  man  comes  into 
life  with  a  bundle  of  tendencies  which  he  inherited  through  his 
parents,  along  a  certain  line  of  race-qualities.  As  different  let- 
ters  spell  difierent  words  in  literature,  so  the  different  faculties, 


370  TEE  BELIGION  OF  ROPE. 

in  different  proportions,  in  each  individual  man  spell  that  man's 
name,  as  different  from  the  name  of  every  other  man.  We 
come  into  life  without  any  inventory  of  what  we  have.  We  are 
born  with  forces  beating  in  us  which  we  do  not  know  the  meaning 
of  We  have,  when  we  set  out  in  life,  the  coarsest,  most  unculti- 
vated, external  character.  And  this  character  is  to  be  built  up  in 
each  individual  according  to  the  charter  of  his  inward  life.  If  a 
man  were  born  symmetric,  wholesome  in  every  part,  unquestionably 
this  fact  would  have  a  direct  influence  uponhis  morality.  It  would 
give  him  rest.  It  would  bring  no  abnormal  strain  upon  any  part 
of  him.  But  if  a  man  be  born  with  an  exquisite  sense  of  approba- 
tiveness,  so  that  praise  or  blame  produces  in  him  a  feeling  of  ecstasy 
or  anguish,  and  if,  withal,  he  be  born  deformed  and  with  dis- 
torted features,  so  that  every  eye  looks  upon  him  Avith  aversion,  has 
he  the  same  chance  to  carry  himself  with  an  equal  balance  as  that 
man  has  who  is  harmonious  Avithout?  Is  not  his  physical  organ- 
ization one  that  is  all  the  time  girding  and  girding  upon  his  most 
sensitive,  his  inward,  his  moral  nature  ?  Do  not  men  depend  upon 
their  physical  conditions  for  a  thousand  things  which  render  calm 
their  interior  faculties  or  stimulate  them  to  development  ? 

A  lily  hits  the  mark  every  time.  There  is  no  difficulty  in 
planting  the  seed  and  having  a  lily  that  will  with  certainty  send 
up  its  stem  and  open  its  pure  white  flowers.  No  lily-seed  ever  ojiens 
a  duck  or  a  hawk  or  a  blackbird,  but  always  a  pure  white  lily-blos- 
som. Is  it  so  with  men?  Plant  the  seed.  Up  comes  a  malignant, 
ugly,  selfish,  embruted  creature.  Plant  again.  Up  comes  a  round, 
laughing,  gay,  joyous,  sunshiny  creature.  Plant  again.  Up  comes 
an  intensely  practical  creature.  Plant  again.  Up  comes  a  low, 
sensuous  nature.  Plant  again.  Up  comes  a  singing  poet.  Plant 
again.  Up  comes  a  genius  for  music  or  painting.  As  we  plant, 
men  unfold  every  conceivable  diversity  of  qualities.  If  Ave  plant 
lilies,  the  result  is  the  same  the  Avorld  around,  with  no  essential  va- 
riation ;  but  men,  when  dcA^eloped  from  the  seed,  manifest  traits 
which  differ  from  those  of  thfir  immediate  progenitors  often  as 
widely  as  it  is  possible  for  human  nature  to  differ.  If  you  put  men 
into  a  temperature  where  it  is  winter  nine  months  of  the  year, 
and  where  the  other  three  months  are  comparatively  unfruitful, 
Avill  their  development  be  the  same  that  it  would  be  if  you  put 
them  in  a  temperature  where  there  are  eight  months  of  bountiful 
seasons,  and  but  tAvo  or  three  months  of  cold  weather  ?  Do  yon  not 
suppose  that  the  climate  in  which  men  are  reared,  and  their  physical 
conditions,  have  a  powerful  influence  upon  their  moral  character? 
The  chances  of  men  who  are  born  Avhere  ignorance  prevails  are  not 


THE  RELIGION  OF  HOPE.  371 

the  Siime  as  the  chances  of  men  wLo  arc  born  in  the  midst  of  schools 
and  churches.  A  child  that  is  born  to  a  pirate  has  not  the  same 
chance  in  liie  as  the  child  that  is  born  to  a  Howard,  or  any  other 
philantliropist. 

Then,  the  social  inflnenccs  which  surround  men  liave  much  to 
do  witli  what  they  are.  Has  the  child  that  first  sees  the  light  at 
the  Five  Ponits  in  New  York  the  same  chance  that  the  child  has 
whose  early  associations,  and  whose  thoughts  of  purity  and  fidelity 
c  nd  truthfnhaess,  are  fostered  in  the  bosom  of  a  high-toned  Chris- 
tian household  ? 

When  yon  come  to  go  down  to  the  root  of  things,  and  see  what 
men  really  are,  taking  them  race  by  race,  and  nation  by  nation,  the 
problem  is  not  so  small  as  men  make  it  out  to  be,  who  reason  upon  man- 
kind. Man/ci7idis,  a  generic  phrase.  We  can  deal  with  men  very  easily 
till  we  come  to  take  them  stock  by  stock,  community  by  community, 
neighborhood  by  neighborhood,  and  study  minutely  all  the  causes 
which  act  upon  them,  taking  into  consideration  their  original  con- 
struction, thoir  hereditary  nature,  the  conditions  under  which  they 
exist,  and  the  influence  of  manners  and  customs  which  meet  them 
at  their  birth,  and  work  upon  their  nature  through  life.  Every 
man  who  is  bora  into  this  life  encounters  the  requisitions  of  man- 
hood, and  every  man  who  has  the  inspiration  of  manhood  waked 
up  in  him  is  obliged  to  begin  his  development  at  the  point  where  he 
finds  himself,  and  under  all  the  restrictions  and  burdens  and  trials 
which  belong  to  his  condition;  he  has  to  commence  his  battle  and 
work  on  the  way  to  perfect  manhood  with  the  endowments  which 
he  possesses.  And  the  problems  are  almost  as  multitudinous  as  the 
men  who  arc  born  into  the  world.  While  those  who  are  born  of 
Christian  parents,  and  inherit  the  influences  and  tendencies  which 
have  been  handed  doAvn  through  Christian  households  for  genenv- 
tions  back,  find  comparatively  little  trouble  in  living  a  highly  de- 
veloped life,  those  who  are  born  of  un-Christian  parents,  and  in- 
herit the  opposite  influences  and  tendencies,  have  to  toil  and 
struggle  against  their  circumstances  and  conditions,  and  find  them- 
selves almost  irresistibly  swept  along  the  downward  course. 

And  yet,  Christianity  is  for  all  men.  It  is  adapted  to  all — the 
high  and  the  low  ;  the  well  organized  and  the  badly  organized.  It 
requires  of  every  man  according  to  what  he  hath,  and  not  ac- 
cording to  what  he  hath  not.  And  over  all  this  mass  of  men,  yet 
divergent  and  discordant,  the  divine  Being  spreads  that  system 
whose  central  light  is  hope. 

Hope  ?  How  can  that  be  'r*  How  can  it  be  that  the  law  of 
God  requires  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  and  that  there  shall  be 


372  TEE  BELIGION  OF  HOPE. 

a  perfect  manhood,  with  this' for  its  nucleating  center,  about  which 
the  crystalHzation  shall  take  place  ?  Considering  the  conditions  of 
men,  and  the  circumstances  in  which  they  are  placed,  in  life,  how 
can  that  be  the  divine  law  ?  When  you  look  upon  the  race  of 
mankind  as  they  are  born  into  life,  and  as  they  are,  hoAv  can  you 
say  that  Christianity  shall  be  a  scheme  of  hope  for  them  ? 

"Ye  are  saved  by  hope."  I  can  understand  it  only  in  one  way — 
namely,  by  considering  that  while  it  is  the  nature  of  God  to  work 
out  for  men  that  ideal,  ultimate  character  to  which  they  are  to 
come,  it  having  pleased  him  to  create  them  for  the  conditions  in 
which  he  has  created  and  re-created  them,  there  is  that  in  his  na- 
ture which  enables  him  to  wait  patiently,  and  mold  gently,  with 
paternal  fidelity,  all  these  various  classes  of  men,  in  their  several 
relations,  and  to  give  them,  every  one,  such  a  hold  upon  him  that 
he  shall  hope.  That  is  to  say,  in  every  step  of  strife,  in  every 
act  of  yearning,  there  is  something  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  pre- 
sented as  the  soul's  model,  which  inspires  hope.  We  are  saved,  not 
by  what  we  are,  but  by  what  we  hope  to  be.  We  are'saved,  not  by 
the  purity  of  our  spirit,  but  by  the  hope  that,  striving  upward  and 
onward,  we  shall  reach  a  state  where  the  spirit  shall  not  be  un- 
worthy of  God. 

I  did  riot  make  myself  small  as  a  seed.  He  that  made  me  small 
as  a  seed,  and  made  it  necessary  that  I  should  raise  myself  up 
through  dangers  and  struggles  to  a  higher  development,  is  in  us. 
And  he  has  a  heart  of  love  and  pity  which  fits  him  to  be  the  God 
of  such  as  we  are,  working  our  way  toward  the  Lord  and  Sa- 
viour Jesus  Christ.  In  other  words  he  has  the  patience  to  wait. 
He  has  a  spirit  of  forgiveness  which  passes  over  iniquity  and  trans- 
gression and  sin  ;  and  every  soul  that  is  born  into  life,  no  matter 
how  high  or  how  low,  no  matter  under  what  obstruction  or  dark- 
ness, no  matter  where,  and  begins  to  aspire,  has  a  right  to  say,  "  I 
am  saved  by  hope — not  by  what  I  am,  but  by  what  God  is." 

Our  children,  in  the  household,  when  they  begin  to  develop  at 
two  or  three  years  of  age,  are  raw  in  every  faculty,  forming  the 
absu-rdest  judgments  about  things,  having  the  most  fantastic  imagi- 
nations, and  the  most  irregular  passions  and  appetites,  and  not 
Having  learned  how  to  develop  themselves  symmetrically ;  but  we 
say  of  them,  "  They  are  children."  And  when  they  become  angry, 
we  sweeten  their  temper,  and  bear  with  them,  and  forget,  with 
every  going  down  of  the  sun  what  there  has  been  of  fault  in  their 
conduct  during  the  day.  "We  help  their  imperfection.  We  remem- 
ber their  transgression  but  to  heal  it.  And  we  do  for  them  in  pro- 
portion to  their  needs.     The  child  in  the  household  that  is  nervous, 


THE  BETJGION  OF  nOFE.    ■  373 

and  irritable,  and  disagreeable,  receives  ten  times  as  much  sympathy 
and  kindness  from  the  fatiier  and  mother  as  the  naturally  sweet 
and  gentle  and  equable  child. 

So  we  learn  by  our  experience  that  there  is  a  patience  and  there 
is  a  love  which  is  a  medicine  for  vice.  And  since  the  earth  is  what 
it  is  by  the  decree  of  God,  since  men  come  into  life  by  the  everlast- 
ing will  of  God,  since  men  find  their  way  from  the  conditions  in 
wliich  they  were  born, toward  a  perfect  manhood  as  far  as  they  go 
by  God's  everlasting  decrees,  it  is  rational  to  suppose  that  over 
against  this  struggling  mass — the  creation  groaning  and  travailing 
in  pain  until^now — there  is  a  Heart  that  is  competent  to  meet  this 
troublesome  problem,  and  that  out  of  the  heavens  will  come  the 
love  and  goodness  of  God,  and  all  those  divine  elements  which 
more  than  make  up  for  the  deficiencies  of  men ;  that  God  is 
still  brooding  and  brooding  over  them,  and  still  persuading  them, 
and  still,  by  things  visible  or  invisible,  by  their  mistakes  and  suf- 
ferings, by  their  hopes  and  joys,  by  a  thousand  influences,  edu- 
cating, fashioning,  forming  them,  so  that  under  all  conditions  they 
have  a  right  to  hope. 

If  a  man  sits  dovrn  and  makes  an  account,  saying,  '•  Here  is 
what  I  am  to  be,  and  here  is  what  I  am,"  he  cannot  but  feel,  "Oh 
wretched  man  that  I  am!  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 
this  death  ?"'  If  a  man  takes  the  debit  side,  he  cannot  find  hope 
or  joy.  The  ideal  of  Christianity  is  so  high  that  no  man  can  bear 
to  look  at  himself  over  against  that  magnificent  picture. 

At  a  friend's  house,  lately,  I  saw  what  was  apparently  a  little 
book  lying  on  the  table,  and  I  took  it  up.  On  the  outfjide  was 
The  Portrait  of  an  Angel.  On  opening  it,  I  found  that  it  was  a 
mirror.     x\nd  oh  !  what  an  angel  I  saw  in  it ! 

If  a  man  takes  the  mirror  of  an  ideal  Christian  manhood  and  looks 
at  himself  in  it,  what  he  sees  himself  to  be  is  not  exactly  his  pattern 
of  a  man  in  Christ  Jesus.  All  the  way  through  life,  if  3'OU  measure 
yourself  by  the  law  of  God,  or  by  the  ideal  manhood  that  is  in  Christ 
Jesus,  there  is  nothing  but  despondency,  nothing  but  despair,  nothing 
but  iiopelessncss  that  can  come  from  it;  but  if  there  sits  in  the  center 
of  the  universe  a  great  Soul  of  Love,  which,  through  the  long  ages, 
lives  but  to  form  and  fashion  and  bring  home,  finally,  sons  and 
daughtei's  to  glory,  then  no  man  who  wants  to  be  a  man  need  have 
occasion  to  despair.  There  is  no  man  who  wants  to  be  better, 
though  he  is  conscious  of  being  burdened  with  innumerable  trans- 
gressions in  the  past,  but  can  bo  saved  by  hope.  A  mau  who  is 
hopeful  says,  "The  impetuosity  of  my  temper,  which  I  have  striven 
against  for  months,  and  which  I  thought  I  had  conquered,  broke 


374  TEE  BELIGION  OF  HOFE. 

down  the  barriers  yesterday;    nevertheless,  God  is  on   my  side. 
Though  I  am  bad  enough,  there  is  hope  for  me  in  the  future. 
There  is  everything  for  me  in  the  heart  of  God ;  so  I  will  labor  and 
strive  on."    Your  passions  are  strong;  you  watch  against  them 
with  all  the  power  of  your  will ;  and  yet,  in  some  unfortunate  mo- 
ment you  are  swept  away.     As  a  prairie  blazes,  and  then  lies  black 
with  ashes  when  the  fire  is  gone,  so  your  experience,  after  having 
taken  you  through  the  fire,  lands  you,  often,  in  ashes  and  sackcloth. 
You  say,  "It  is  the  hundredth  time.     Woe  is  me !     Who  shall  de- 
liver me  from  the  body  of  this  death  ?"    And  yet,  after  shame,  after 
mortified  pride,  after  the  flagellations  of  a  despotic  conscience,  there 
rises  up  an  undiscouraged  wish,  "  Oh,  that  I  might  be  free !"     This 
is  the  voice  of  God  calling  out  from  the  very  depths  of  the  heaven 
of  love,  and  saying,  "Ye  are  to  be  saved  by  hope."'     There  is  hope 
for  you.     What  if  in  a  thousand  things  you  find  your  petty  selfish- 
ness creeping  in  ?     What  if  it  is  like  mildew  that  steals  into  the 
most  secret  places  ?     What  if  it  is  like  dust  that  intrudes  into  the 
closest-shut  watch  ?     What  if  it  is  like  rust  that  corrodes  whatever 
it  can  touch  ?    What  if  there  be  ten  thousand  cutting,  wasting 
evils  in  you  ?     God  made  you ;  he  loved  you  and  loves  you.    Jesus 
Christ  has  redeemed  you ;  and  he  waits  upon  you  and  watches  you 
and  influences  you.    You  are  just  as  wicked  as  you  think.     You 
are  a  great  deal  more  wicked.    You  are  under  just  such  condemna- 
tions as  you  think,  and  they  are  more  awful  than  you  dream.     The 
point  where  you  do  not  magnify,  where  you  do  not  realize  the 
truth,  is  the  divine  government — the  redemptory  power  which  sits 
in  the  center  of  the  universe,  sovereign  and  everlasting.     God  is 
bringing  men  out  from  prison;  from  Siberian  captivity;  from  dun- 
geons ;  from  every  conceivable  condition  of  misery.     They  are  in 
the  midst  of  all  manner  of  burdens  and  trials  and  sufferings,  but 
they  are  saved  by  hope ;  for  the  Spirit  knows  what  they  need  better 
than  they  do,  and  prays  through  ihem  with  groanings  unutterable; 
so  that  they  have  reason  to  be  hopeful,  and  to  believe  that  there  are 
in  them  the  beginnings  of  tendencies  which  shall  lead  them  upward 
toward  God. 

So  long  as  there  is  this  divine  love,  and  this  divine  yearning, 
and  this  divine,  guardian  care,  there  is  courage  for  every  man  who 
desires  to  aspire,  or  wants  to  go  up. 

There  is  not,  to-day,  in  all  the  world,  following  the  equator 
round,  a  seed  that  has  not  liberty  to  sprout  and  grow  if  you  will 
put  it  in  the  soil.  But  if  you  take  a 'seed,  no  matter  what  its  na- 
ture may  be,  and  hide  it  where  the  sun  cannot  find  it,  there  is  not 
in  all  the  summer,  on  the  equator  and  both  sides  of  it,  any  influence 
that  can  make  it  sprout. 


THE  EELIGJON  OF  HOPE.  375 

If  men,  living  in  this  world  under  a  constitution  of  infinite 
patience,  gentleness,  mercy,  love,  and  hopefulness,  choose  to  seques- 
ter themselves  from  the  stimulating  light  and  warmth  of  the  all- 
merciful  God,  they  can  remain  outcast,  unsprouted  and  ungrowing. 
There  is  not  a  man,  no  matter  how  coarse  and  animal  and  low  down 
he  may  be ;  there  is  not  a  man,  however  he  may  be  beset  and  beat 
about  with  temptations,  that  wants  to  grow,  and  is  growing,  even 
if  he  makes  but  one  leaf  in  a  year  and  one  joint  in  a  season — there 
is  no  such  man  who  may  not  hope ;  not  because  he  is  so  good, 
but  because  God  is  so  good ;  not  because  of  what  he  has  done  or  is 
doing,  but  because  of  what  he  means  to  do  hereafter.  I  do  not 
believe  that  anybody,  in  going  to  heaven,  makes  a  leap  so  that  from 
being  very  imperfect  here  he  is,  as  it  were,  by  a  click,  transmuted, 
and  made  absolutely  perfect  there.  I  believe  that  we  go  out  of  this 
life  into  conditions  of  blessedness  where  temj)tations  are  gone ;  where 
the  passions  and  appetites  are  left  behind  ;  where  motives  to  good 
are  multiplied ;  where  certainty  takes  the  place  of  suspense  or 
doubt;  and  where  we  go  on  from  point  to  point  upward,  those  that 
go  there  low  starting  from  the  low-down  point,  and  those  that 
go  there  high  starting  from  the  high-up  point.  A  man  may  escape 
to  heaven  so  as  by  fire ;  but  he  will  have  to  make  up  there  what  he 
omits  here.  Or  if  he  is  far  developed  when  he  goes  there,  he  will 
stand  in  the  midst  of  thrones  and  dominions  and  potentates,  by 
reason  of  that  which  he  has  enabled  grace  to  do  for  him  in  this 
Hfe. 

It  is  not  my  object,  however,  so  much  to  open  up  the  doctrine 
of  the  future,  as  to  hold  the  thought  of  hope  and  encouragement 
before  every  man,  whether  in  the  church  or  out  of  the  church,  who 
is  struggling  under  his  OAvn  sense  of  imperfection,  and  of  condemn- 
ation in  (  onsequence  of  his  failure  in  his  attempt  to  be  a  whole  man 
all  throu'gh,  and  who,  because  he  is  not  able  to  keep  up  a  symmet- 
ric obedience  and  conformity  to  the  ideal  which  is  presented  to  him 
of  true  Christian  manhood,  is  tempted  to  give  up  the  endeavor.  I 
desire  to  help  those  who  are  in  danger  of  becoming  sour  through 
discouragement,  and  then  cynical,  and  then  censorious,  watcliing 
others,  and  saying  of  them,  ''  They  are  not  as  good  as  they  pretend. 
I  am  not  very  good,  but  I  am  as  good  as  they  are."  Far  better  is  it 
for  men  to  know  that  we  are  all  born  into  life  full  of  imperfections; 
that  life  means  all  that  it  was  meant  to  mean;  that  the  theory  and 
problem  of  human  life  is  development  out  from  the  lowest  to  the 
highest  condition  of  moral  character;  that  there  is  a  providence 
exactly  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  race,  which  supervises  them 
paternally  and  maternally,  and  that  there  is  in  it  not  only  patience, 


376  TEE  BELIGION  OF  HOPE, 

but  infinite  waiting,  and  love  and  forgiveness.  I  desire  to  say  to 
every  man,  high  or  low,  good  or  bad, — Let  hope  lead  you  to  righteous- 
ness. Do  not  listen  to  the  voice  of  fear.  Your  God  is  love,  and 
your  religion  is  peculiarly  inspired  by  the  element  of  hope.  If  you 
have  tried  to  follow  the  right,  and  failed,  try  again.  If  you  have 
been  cast  down  by  your  adversary,  grasp  your  weapon  and  attack 
him  again.  If  you  persevere  you  will  prevail.  More  are  they  that 
are  for  you  than  are  they  that  are  against  you.  God  is  not  without 
witnesses.  No  one  in  the  universe  knows  as  well  as  he  what  the 
weight  of  testimony  is  against  bad  men,  and  what  they  have  to 
suffer.  No  one  understands  their  case  so  well  as  He  before  whom 
they  are  to  stand  in  the  judgment.  But  if  you  were  to  gather  to- 
gether all  the  renowned  fathers  and  tender  mothers  that  are  on  the 
poi:)nlous  globe  to-day,  or  that  have  been  since  time  began,  they  all 
would  not  equal  in  depth  and  strength  and  vastness  the  sweet  ten- 
derness and  gentleness  that  there  is  in  Jesus  Christ.  The  heaven 
is  full  of  the  glory  of  God,  and  of  the  love  of  God ;  and  it  is  under 
the  influence  of  God,  and  of  the  future  in  which  we  hope  to  dwell 
in  his  presence,  that  every  man  strives  to  be  better — that  the  sinner 
strives  to  be  good ;  that  the  good  man  strives  to  be  a  saint ;  and 
that  tlie  saint  strives  to  rise  still  higher. 

It  is  not  what  we  are  that  saves  us.  By  the  grace  of  God  we 
are  to  be  saved  ;  and  that  grace  is  named  Love.  God  brings  us  to 
himself,  as  parents  bring  their  children  to  themselves,  because  he 
loves  us. 

It  is  "to  that  Saviour,  brethren,  that  we  have  given  our  vows  and 
our  allegiance.  It  is  to  the  name  of  that  Saviour  that  we  owe  all 
that  we  have  had  in  the  past,  It  is  from  him  that  all  we  hope  for 
in  the  future  is  to  come. 

We  are  to-day  to  refresh,  by  these  symbols,  our  memory  of  the 
earthly  life  of  our  dear  Lord,  by  which  he  manifested  to  us,  to  the 
world  and  to  the  universe,  this  nature  of  divine  pity.  Eather  than 
that  the  world  should  perish,  he  perished.  He  gave  himself  for 
men.  There  is  a  symbolism  of  divine  government.  There  is  an 
interpretation  of  divine  love  and  mercy. 

As  many  of  you,  therefore,  as  yet  feel  your  need  of  divine  suc- 
cor ;  as  many  of  you  as  feel  that  by  nature  you  are  children  of 
wrath ;  as  many  of  you  as  feel  that  you  are  imperfect  and  un- 
worthy ;  as  many  of  you  as  feel  that  you  need  patience  and  gentle- 
ness and  watchfulness,  and  are  willing  to  accept  them  at  the  hands 
of  Christ,  and  are  willing  to  say  to  him,  "  Poor,  blind,  naked,  ut- 
terly sinful,  I  come  to  thee  for  succor,  and  I  trust  thee" — so  man]? 
of  you  have  a  right,  to-day,  to  partake  with  us  of  these  emblems. 


THE  BELIGION  OF  HOPE.  377 

Oh,  guilty  lips !  oh,  heart  full  of  all  bitterncBS !  oh,  treacherous 
ones,  who  have  sworn  often  and  broken  your  vows !  do  you  ask  me 
if  you  may  come?  Yes.  Not  if  you  come  in  order  to  find  an 
apology  for  evil,  but  if  you  come  to  find  a  remedy.  Has  any  man 
here  lived  by  stealing,  hating  it,  and  hating  himself,  and  longing 
to  be  an  honest  man,  and  striving  with  some  success  to  overcome 
it,  and  yet  often  cast  down  ?  And  does  he  look  wistful  and  say, 
"I  wonder  if  that  would  help  me  ?"  You  may  come  and  see  if  it 
will  help  you.  Is  there  any  man  here  who  feels  Avhat  sordidness 
means,  and  watches  against  it,  and  prays  against  it,  and  is  betrayed 
by  it,  and  day  by  day  feels  that  it  is  an  enemy  stronger  than  he  is  ? 
Do  you  say,  "  I  promised  God  a  hundred  times  that  I  would  over- 
come it,  and  every  time  I  have  broken  my  promise,  and  I  am 
ashamed  to  pray  any  more  "  ?  Do  you  look  wistfully  at  this  table, 
and  say,  "I  wonder  if  I  should  get  any  strength  if  I  took  those 
emblems"  ?  If  you  want  to  try  it,  take  them.  This  bread  and 
this  wine  are  not  too  good  for  a  man  who  wants  to  do  better,  and  is 
in  real  earnest,  trying  to  be  better.  These  simple  memorials  are 
meant  to  encourage  those  who  want  to  live  a  godly  life.  Come, 
therefore,  and  take  them,  not  for  the  sake  of  saying,  "  There  is  a 
secret  influence  in  them  which  rubs  out  the  past,  and  I  am  cleared 
up  to  this  time"  ;  but  if  you  acknowledge  that  you  have  been  going 
wrong,  and  you  are  sorry  for  it,  and  you  want  to  be  better  in  tem- 
13c-r,  and  delivered  from  every  wicked  and  worldly  way,  and  you 
mean  to  reform,  and  to  avail  yourself  of  all  the  help  you  can  get, 
and  you  think  that  this  ordinance  will  bring  you  nearer  to  God,  then 
I  say,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  you  have  aright  to 
participate  in  it.  It  is  for  Such  as  you  that  the  Saviour  gave  his 
life. 

Oh,  sinning  men,  under  the  condemnation  of  your  own  con- 
science, and  under  the  withering  contempt  and  scorn  of  your  fel- 
low men,  you  do  not  know  how  tenderly  God  thinks  of  you,  or  how , 
his  love  draws  you  toward  him.  Turn  from  men  and  ministers  and 
churches  if  you  have  received  no  benefit  from  them,  but  turn  not 
away  from  Christ  Jesus ;  for  he  sorrows  for  you.  Having  died  for 
you  once,  he  now  lives  forever  for  you.  And  because  he  is  so  good, 
you  are  not  so  bad  but  that  you  may  be  saved  with  an  everlasting 
salvation. 

I  invite  all  tliose  who  are  making  an  effort  to  live  a  godly  life, 
in  sincerity  and  in  truth,  whether  they  be  members  of  our  faith 
and  order  or  not,  whether  they  belong  to  the  great  Protestant  body 
or  the  great  Eoman  Catholic  body,  or  whether  they  belong  to  no 
church  at  all;   I  invite  all  those  who  are  conscious  of  sin,  and  are 


378  THE  BELIGION  OF  HOPE. 

striving  to  break  away  from  it,  and  want  help,  to  partake  of  the 
broken  body  and  the  spilled  blood  of  Christ,  their  Saviour  and  my 
Saviour,  and  the  hope  of  all  sinners. 


PEAYEE  BEFOEE  THE  SEEMOE". 

Thou  art  bountiful,  O  Lord  our  God.  The  heavens  are  full  of  light.  Thy 
ways  are  light ;  and  yet,  to  us,  they  are  often  dark  and  obscure.  Thou  seest 
the  end  from  the  beginning ;  and  yet,  to  us  inextricable  confusion  exists  in 
affairs.  We  know  not  how  to  compass  thee ;  nor  do  we  know  how  to  under- 
stand thy  wonderful  workings ;  and  we  can  only  trust,  and  believe  that  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth  cannot  but  do  right,  and  that,  finally,  when  we  shall 
behold  things  in  the  light  of  thy  countenance,  we  shall  see  thy  divine  wis- 
dom guiding  all  which  seemed  irregular,  and  lea^rn  that  thou  hast  wrought 
out,  in  thine  own  way,  infinite  excellence  and  infinite  glory. 

We  desire,  O  Lord,  to  trust,  not  in  our  thought  of  thee,  but  in  thee.  We 
desire  to  believe  that  thou  art  greater  than  our  utmost  stretch  of  imagina- 
tion, and  that  thy  greatness  is  not  in  power  as  much  as  iu  purity,  and  in 
gentleness,  and  in  wisdom,  and  in  love,  and  in  all  that  makes  the  soul  blessed. 
Infinite  art  thou,  and  infinite  art  thou  in  thy  moral  excellence,  which  tran- 
scends all  human  experience,  and  all  the  following  of  our  imperfect 
thoughts.  And  when  we  rise  into  thy  presence  we  shall  not  be  disappointed. 
We  shall  not  find  thee  different  from  what  we  expected  in  that  thou  art  less 
excellent ;  but  thy  glory  will  overflow  in  us  in  wonder  and  sweet  surprise, 
and  the  power  of  thy  presence  and  the  joy  and  gladness  of  thy  being  will 
kindle  in  us  such  joy  that  spontancousl}"  we  shall  cry  out,  as  do  they  that 
are  round  about  thee,  Glorj^,  and  honor,  and  praise,  and  power  and  dominion 
be  unto  him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne,  and  to  the  Lamb  forever. 

And  now,  O  Lord,  we  desire,  wandering  in  twilight,  or  in  darkness,  or  in 
noonday,  to  have  firm  trust  in  thee.  And  while  we  may  fall  one  from 
another,  while  man  maj^  deceive  man,  while  we  are  in  the  maze  of  cunning 
and  deceit,  v/hich  fills  human  life  with  distrust  and  uncertainty,  grant,  O 
Lord  our  God,  that  we  may  find  in  thee  a  present  help,  and  an  alleviation  of 
fear.  Grant  that  we  may  find  rest  and  comfort  when  we  are  under  the 
dominion  of  our  own  selfishness.  May  we  find  hope  even  in  the  discourage- 
ment which  we  have  when  we  compare  our  life  and  character  with  thy  law. 
Ma}'  we  live  by  hope,  and  be  sustained  from  day  to  day  by  that  which  our 
souls  do  so  much  need. 

Now,  we  beseech  of  thee,  O  Lord  our  God,  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  bless- 
ing to  rest  upon  every  one  especially  as  he  needs.  Grant  to  those  in  thy 
presence  this  day,  that  their  secret  desires  may  come  up  before  thee,  inter- 
preted, if  not  by  words,  yet  by  divine  insight  and  understanding.  And  grant 
an  answer  to  all  those  secret  prayers  which  thy  people  bring  to  thee,  nol 
according  to  the;  wisdom  of  their  asking,  but  according  to  the  wisdom  of  thy 
beholding.  And  if  it  be  best  that  they  should  walk  in  darkness,  let  not  their 
cry  for  light  bring  light  too  soon.  If  it  bo  needful  for  them  that  the  yoke 
should  be  borne,  or  that  the  burden  should  be  canned,  take  it  not  off.  Love 
them,  O  Father,  for  their  good,  and  with  chastisement  make  them  worthy  to 
be  called  thy  children,  if  that  be  best. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  to  all  those  who  are  in  affliction  the  saving 
Jense  of  the  divine  presence  with  them.    If  there  are  any  whose  troubled 


lEE  EELIGION  OF  HOPE.  379 

spring  from  the  ground  and  the  dust,  may  they  feel  that  they  are  under  the 
guiding  hand  of  a  Father,  and  that  all  thinjrs  shall  work  together  for  good 
to  them  that  love  God.  May  they  who  are  borne  down  by  trials  hear  thee 
saying,  Though  for  the  present  it  is  not  joyous  T)ut  grievous,  yet  afterward 
it  yieldeth  the  peaceable  fruit  of  righteousness.  Grant  that  all  Avho  are  in 
affliction  may  have  the  blessing  of  Almighty  God  resting  upon  them,  and 
that  they  may  become  more  humble,  more  gentle,  richer  in  faith,  richer  in 
fore-looking  hope. 

AVe  pray  that  thou  wilt  sustain  those  who  are  in  the  midst  of  disappoint- 
ments, who  are  chafed  by  cares,  and  who  are  perplexed  by  the  various  things 
which  surround  thcra.  May  they  look  to  thee  for  guidance.  And  by  thy 
providence  wilt  thou  indicate  to  them  thy  will. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  make  us  independent  of  our  circumstances  in  so 
far  that  we  shall  feel  our  manhood  to  be  more  than  property  and  more 
than  standing.  May  we  be  grateful  for  whatever  is  round  about  us  that  sus- 
tiiins  us.  And  yet  may  we  look  to  thee  as  a  better  portion  than  anything 
which  the  world  can  give. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  draw  near  this  morning  to  those  who  need  guid- 
ance in  their  households— guidance  in  respect  to  their  children,  and  guidance 
in  their  domestic  relations.  O  Lord,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  give  the  wisdom 
of  patience  and  gentleness  and  self-denial  to  all  who  need  it.  And  grant 
that  they  may  be  faithful  guides  whom  thou  hast  appointed  to  take  thine 
own  little  ones  and  bring  them  up  to  manhood. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  draw  near  to  those  who  are  separated 
from  their  friends ;  whose  hearts  are  burdened  by  the  absence  of  those  who 
are  near  and  dear  to  them.  And  wilt  thou  bless  those  absent  ones  wherever 
they  are.  Will  the  Lord  especially  make  the  light  of  his  countenance  to 
shine  upon  their  way,  and  be  present  with  them  always  and  everywhere, 
upon  the  sea  or  upon  the  land,  whether  they  are  among  strangers  or  among 
friends.  Be  thou  around  about  them,  that  thy  providence  may  defend  them, 
and  lead  them  to  all  good.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  those  who, 
afar  off,  to-day,  send  back  yeanlings  and  longings  for  the  companionship  of 
those  whom  they  have  left  behind,  may  have  the  blessing  of  the  Son  of  God ; 
and  may  our  hearts  and  theirs  unite  in  a  common  hope  and  faith,  and  in 
common  prayers. 

Bless  the  strangers  who  are  in  our  midst.  Grant  that  they  may  have  thy 
guidance  in  all  the  la^yf ul  errands  of  life.  Save  those  who  are  in  despair. 
Give  courage  to  those  who  seek  to  build  themselves  up  in  life.  Grant  deliv- 
erance to  those  who  are  in  despondency.  Bless  the  memory  of  those  who 
are  to-day  calling  back  to  thee  with  much  home-sickness  to  their  friends  who 
are  afar  off.  Take  care,  we  pray  thee,  of  their  households  during  thei." 
absence.  And  in  thine  own  good  time  return  the  wanderers  to  the  center  of 
their  hearts'  affections,  laden  with  the  experiences  of  God's  great  goodness 
to  them. 

We  pray,  O  Lord,  that  thy  truth  may  this  day  be  glorified  in  our  midst. 
May  there  be  some  souls  thirsting  for  the  water  and  himgering  for  the  bread 
of  life.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  <his  church  and  all  its  members,  and  all 
its  schools,  and  %11  its  varied  labors  for  the  welfare  of  men.  Grant  that  thy 
Spirit  may  more  and  more  abound  here;  as  a  Gre  may  it  consmne  the 
dross.  May  pride  and  self-seeking  and  envies  and  jealousies  be  unknown  in 
the  midst  of  this  people.  More  and  more  may  men  be  willing  to  labor,  not 
for  their  ov.ti  honor  and  glory,  but  for  the  glory  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and 
lay  foundations  that  others  may  build  upon  them  and  take  the  credit,  while 
they  have  borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day.  ilay  there  be  that  dis- 
interestedness in  all  the  members  of  this  church  which  wixs  in  their  Master 
Jesus  Christ ;  and  we  pray  that  we  may  follow  him,  not  alone  in  joy,  but  in 


880  TEE  BELIGION  OF  HOPE. 

sorrow;  not  alone  in  victory,  but  in  bearing  the  cross.  So  may  their  life  be 
rich  in  the  sight  of  God  while  to  men  they  may  seem  to  be  living  without 
joy,  without  ambition,  and  without  successes.  Grant  that  there  may  be  in 
them  a  holy  hope,  and  a  yearning  and  an  aspiration  for  things  nobler  and 
better  than  this  life  can  give  them. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the  churches  of 
this  city,  and  of  the  city  near  to  tis,  and  upon  the  churches  throughout  our 
land,  of  every  name.  May  thy  Gospel  be  more  and  more  faithfully  and 
clearly  preached. 

"We  pray  for  the  schools  and  colleges  and  seminaries  of  learning.  We 
pray  for  the  sanctification  of  newspapers,  that  they  may  become,  in  thy 
providence,  is  so  many  moving  institutions  carrying  light  abroad  and  pour- 
ing radiance  upon  the  dark  places  of  the  land. 

We  pray  for  the  poor  and  the  outcast.  We  pray  for  those  new-made 
men  who  yet  sit  in  darkness,  and  lack  schools  and  culture.  Raise  up  those 
who  shall  be  willing  to  spend  their  lives  for  the  sake  of  those  who  are  des- 
pised. We  pray  that  thou  wilt  turn  the  hearts  of  men  to  each  other,  and 
overcome  the  conflicts  which  impend.  We  pray,  O  God,  that  thou  wilt  be 
found  in  the  midst  of  this  people,  counseling  them  to  wisdom,  and  guiding 
them  to  things  which  shall  be  for  the  furtherance  of  thine  own  honor  and 
glory.  Let  thy  kingdom  come  every  where.  Let  thy  will  be  done,  on  earth 
as  it  is  in  heaven.  And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise,  Father,  Son  and 
Spirit,  evermore.    Amen. 


XXT. 

Spiritual  Fruit-Culture. 


INVOCATION, 

O  Lord,  how  great  is  thy  glory !  In  the  stillness  which  thou  hast  en- 
forced upon  us  by  reason  of  these  mortal  bodies,  we  cannot  hear  all  the  glory 
and  the  joy  of  those  that  are  about  thee ;  but  thou  art  abiding  in  eternal 
gladness;  and  they  that  have  reached  unto  thee  are  glad  with  thee;  and  out 
of  the  divine  sphere  come,  as  far  as  we  may  take  them,  sucli  things  as  com- 
fort, and  leave  us  hope.  But  chiefly  out  of  thine  own  soul,  grant  unto  us, 
this  morning,  Father,  the  fullness  which  we  need  to  become  thy  children  in 
that  estate  which  we  inherit  because  thou  art  our  Father.  Bound  to  us  by 
the  ties  of  love,  how  great  are  thy  desires!  and  may  they  be  manifested  in  us 
to-day.  Wilt  thou  help  us  to  feel  the  relationship  which  we  sustain.  And 
may  we  draw  near  by  faith  and  by  love  to  rejoice  in  thy  presence,  and  in  the 
largeness  of  the  liberty  which  we  have  as  children  of  God.  Bless  the  ser- 
vices of  the  sanctuary — its  offices  of  instruction,  of  devotion,  of  meditation. 
Bless  the  day  here,  and  at  home,  and  everywhere.  And  may  thy  name 
be  glorified,  and  ourselves  greatly  comforted,  through  Jesus  Christ  the 
Redeemer.  Amen, 
n. 


SPIRITUAL  FEUIT-CULTUEE.    . 


"  The  woman  said  unto  him,  Sir,  give  me  of  this  water,  that  I  thirst  not, 
neither  come  hither  to  draw."— John  IV.  15. 


There  is  no  fairer  spot  in  Palestine  than  that  which  was  the 
scene  of  this  remarkable  conversation.  It  was  one  of  the  most 
charming  of  valleys;  on  either  side  were  beautiful  mountainous 
hills;  the  climate  was  delicious.  It  is  known  among  all  Oriental 
travelers  as  the  perfection  of  beauty.  It  was  early  the  scene  of  the 
patriarch  Jacob's  love.  Here  he  purchased  possessions.  He  sunk  a 
well.  It  was  a  rugged  well.  All  the  geological  formations  in  that 
region  are  of  limestone,  filled  here  and  there  with  caves.  The  rocks 
are  everywhere  seamed,  and  are  not  difficult  to  be  wrought  by 
hand.  And  Avhen  the  well  is  sunk  through  that  formation — not, 
like  our  own,  dug  in  the  crumbling  earth,  nor  curbed  with  perish- 
able wood,  or  Avith  stone  or  Avith  brick — when  a  Avell  is  sunk  through 
such  a  medium,  it  stands  forever.  And  that  well  remains  to  this 
day,  answering  its  purppses  as  faithfully  and  as  perfectly  as  it  did  an 
hour  after  Jacob  himself  first  drew  water  from  it. 

Those  Oriental  wells  often  were  so  large  that  steps  were  cut 
around  the  interior  down  to  the  Avater.  At  other  times,  Avhen  they 
were  not  so  large,  the  AA'ater  Avas  draAvn.  A  curb  Avas  put  around 
about  the  exterior,  and  over  the  stones  of  this  curb,  or,  over  a  kind 
of  rude  AA'heel  (a  wheel  Avithout  motion)  a  cord  Avas  put  by  Avhich  to 
draAv  up  the  Avater.  It  Avas  upon  such  a  curb — upon  these  stones 
which  were  laid  about  the  mouth  of  the  well  to  defend  it — that  our 
Saviour  sat.  It  Avas  at  the  sixth  hour  of  the  day,  or  twelve  o'clock ; 
and  noon  in  that  climate  meant  heat.  No  Avonder  that  he  was 
tired. 

When  this  very  smart,  capable  Samaritan  woman  came  to  draw 
water,  she  came,  doubtless,  Avith  her  bucket  of  skin  and  Avith  a  long 
cord — for  each  one  brouglit  his  oAvn  utensils  to  the  Avell,  as  there 
were  no  permanent  fixtures  for  the  use  of  all  that  came.    By  his 

Sunday  Morning,  Juno  18, 1872.   Lbsson  :  John  IV.  a-27.   Hymns  (Plymouth  Collection) 
Nos.  180, 6T5, 819. 


384  8PIBITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUBE. 

features,  by  his  dress,  and  by  his  general  demeanor,  she  knew  at 
once  that  he  was  a  Jew.  Therefore,  when  he  asked  her  for  water, 
though  she  seems  to  have  been  a  yery  kind-hearted  person,  gener- 
ous (too  generous!)  she  thought  it  necessary  to  assume  toward  him 
the  air  of  a  sectarian,  and  to  remind  him  that  he  was  a  Jew,  and 
that  if  he  drank  of  the  water  from  her  bucket,  it  was  as  a  favor. 
Thereupon  arose  a  conversation.  She  said,  "  Why  do  you  ask  me, 
a  Samaritan  woman,  you  being  a  Jew?"  Jesus  replied,  "  If  you 
knew  who  I  am,  matters  would  be  reversed ;  you  would  ask  favor 
of  me  instead  of  my  asking  it  of  you ;  for  I  could  give  you  living 
Avater  which,  once  drank,  would  quench  thirst  forever."  Thus  he 
gave  an  external  symbol  with  an  internal  meaning ;  but  the  woman 
caught  the  outside  only.  And  she  said,  "  The  well  is  deep."  And 
looking  him  over  and  seeing  that  he  carried  nothing,  she  said, 
"Where  is  this  water  ?  You  have  nothing  to  draw  with.  "Where 
do  you  propose  to  get  it  ?  Give  it  to  me,  that  I  come  not  here  any 
more,  neither  draw."  If  there  was  any  way  that  could  economize 
labor,  she  wanted  to  know  it.  "If  you  have  the  secret  of  any  out- 
gushing  spring  in  this  region  where  I  can  get  water  without  so 
much  trouble,  tell  me  where  it  is.  If  there  is  any  way  in  which 
you  can  abbreviate  my  daily  toil,  I  will  thank  you  for  that."  The 
language  is  the  language  of  one  who  would  have  been  glad  to  have 
the  bounty,  but  who  did  not  desire  the  necessary  labor  by  which 
to  procure  it.  "  Give  me  this  water,  that  I  thirst  not,  neither  come 
hither  to  draw." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  the  narrative  beyond  this  point, 
although  it  is  one  of  intense  interest,  and  one  of  the  most  remarka- 
ble, because,  occurring  in  the  earlier  part  of  our  Saviour's  career,  it 
developed  to  this  woman  some  truths  which  to  others  were  devel- 
oped only  toward  the  very  close  of  his  earthly  life. 

The  spirit  of  this  woman  has  gone  through  time,  and  animates 
men  to  this  day.  The  Christ. that  is  the  Master  of  us  all,  whatever 
term  we  please  to  call  him  by — Providence,  or  God,  or  Saviour — we 
are  soliciting  perpetually,  as  the  woman  did,  saying,  "Give  me,  that 
I  labor  not."  It  is  not,  "  Teach  me  how  to  earn,"  or,  "  Teach  me 
the  method  of  obtaining":  it  is,  "Give  me  of  this  water,  that  I 
come  not  here  to  draw.  It  is  wearisome,  in  the  broiling  noon.  My 
steps  are  many.  I  am  tired  of  labor.  I  desire  the  benefit  without 
the  necessity  of  obtaining  it  through  appropriate  toil." 

It  is  on  this  subject  that  I  wish  to  speak  this  morning — namely, 
the  very  prevalent  disposition  of  men  to  seek  religious  benefit  in 
some  way  which  does  not  imply  education  and  personal  endeavor 
and  responsibility.     Men  do  not  expect  physical  results  except  by 


SPIRITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUEE.  385 

appropriate  effort.  I  mean  civilized  men — men  of  our  race  and  cf 
our  times.  That  there  are  indolent  tribes,  whose  wants  are  few  and 
supplied  by  nature,  and  who,  their  wants  being  so  supplied,  are 
always  small  and  reduced  in  manhood,  I  do  not  deny ;  but  in  our 
time,  in  our  nation,  we  are  enterprising,  ambitious,  desirous  of 
much,  seeking  much ;  and  so  far  as  physical  gifts  are  concerned, 
although  we  know  that  they  are  dependent  largely  upon  natural 
endowments,  yet  we  know  that  much  of  that  which  is  needful  for 
the  procuration  of  physical  results  is  far  beyond  our  reach  or  inter- 
ference. We  are  schooled  out  of  the  notions  of  fate,  and  men  of 
enterprise,  studying  the  wise  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  are  neces- 
sary. 

So  parents  do  not  pray  that  God  would  inspire  their  boys  with  a 
skillful  trade.  They  put  them  out  in  apprenticeship,  and  pray  God 
that  the  boys  may  attend  to  their  business,  and  take  proper  steps  to 
learn  that  trade.  It  is  not  supposed  that  the  secret  which  is  hid 
in  the  hand  will  ever  be  developed  by  prayer  through  divine  grace." 
If  a  man  has  skill  of  hand,  it  is  to  be  developed  by  training,  and  not 
by  praying.  In  contrivances,  in  the  skillful  adaptation  of  things, 
men  believe  that  we  must  come  to  results  which  they  seek  through 
the  application  of  those  causes  which,  experience  has  shown,  deter- 
mine effects. 

There  are  those  still  who  speak  of  luch.  The  number  decreases 
with  intelligence  and  with  enterprise.  Luck  usually  goes  with  the 
lazy,  if  it  goes  with  any, — I  mean  the  faith  of  it.  As.  men  become  in- 
telligent they  care  less  and  less  for  luck,  so-called.  But  health  is 
luck.  Good  habits  are  luck.  Industry  is  luck.  Frugality  is  luck. 
A  sense  of  the  fitness  of  time,  of  men  and  of  opportunities — there  is 
luck  in  that.  "Very  little  luck  is  there  in  waiting  for  things;  in 
standing  and  hoping  that  something  will  fall  down  in  your  way, 
you  know  not  how ;  that  somebody  will  lose  his  wallet,  that  you  will 
find  it,  and  that  the  owner  of  it  will  not  turn  up.  There  are  those 
who  desire  to  be  fed  without  earning  what  they  eat.  There  are 
those  who  desire  to  be  clothed  without  obtaining  the  raiment  which 
they  wear.  But  in  intelligent  classes  men  have  understood  that  if 
they  wish  physical  things — houses;  implements;  barns,  and  har- 
vests in  them  ;  shops,  and  products  in  them ;  storehouses,  and  busi- 
ness in  them — these  are  not  to  be  had  simply  by  reading  and  long- 
ing, nor  even  by  praying  for  them.  Did  you  ever  suppose  a  man 
prayed  himself  into  bank-stock,  and  into  large  farms,  and  into  nu- 
merous ships.     We  have  given  over  praying  for  these  things. 

"We  pray  for  ourselves,  that  we  may  be  so  guided  that  we  shall 
thiuK  right,  and  so  inspired  that  we  shall  labor  right ;  but  we 


386  SPIEITUAL  FBTJIT-CULTUBE, 

connect  with  our  activity  all  the  things  which  we  desire  in 
respect  to  onr  physical  sphere.  Men  do  not  look  for  intellec- 
tual results  except  by  the  appropriate  application  of  means  to 
ends.  We  never  pray  for  general  knowledge.  We  do  not  teach  our 
children  to  pray  for  general  information.  We  teach  them  to  use 
their  eyes,  and  to  employ  their  ears.  We  teach  them  to  read.  We 
teach  them  to  keep  company  with  intelligent  persons,  and  learn, 
wherever  they  go,  so  to  increase  their  knowledge.  This  is  not  in- 
consistent with  the  petition  that  God  will  sustain  us  in  the  exertion 
of  our  natural  faculties.  But  we  have  got  rid  of  the  supposition  that 
knowledge  comes  to  us  by  any  divine  afflatus.  It  is  the  glory  of 
the  common  school,  the  academy  and  the  college,  among  a  self- 
governing  people,  that  they  make  us  feel  that  if  we  want  any- 
thing intellectual,  we  must  get  it  by  the  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends.  Education,  training,  development,  cannot  be  attained  with- 
out effort.  If  knowledge  is  to  be  general,  and  still  more  if  it  is  to 
be  special,  it  must  be  striven  for.  If  a  man  is  going  to  have  a  suc- 
cessful law  practice,  he  must  press  himself  into  it.  Men  labor  for 
these  things,  and  pray  in  connection  with  them.  Intelligent  prayer 
does  not  remove,  nor  lighten,  in  the  slightest  degree,  the  sense  of 
personal  responsibility,  and  the  conviction  that  appropriate  causes 
will  develop  the  desired  result. 

So,  no  man  prays  for  books.  E"o  man  prays  for  newspapers. 
No  man  prays  that  he  may  have  the  benefit  of  schools  and  colleges 
without  going  through  them.  No  man  prays  for  the  results  of  pro- 
fessional skill  Avithout  the  drill  which  leads  to  them. 

There  is  one  apparent  exception  to  this  universal  rule.  It  is 
supposed  by  many  that  geniuses  are  separate  and  apart  from  men 
ordinarily;  and  that  wliile  the  common  people,  without  genius,  are 
obliged  to  work  for  what  they  have,  men  who  have  genius  come  to 
success  without  labor.  We  are  not  wrong  in  supposing  that  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  genius.  Genius. is  only  another  word  for  a  more 
highly  organized  condition  of  the  brain.  When  men's  brains  are. 
organized  at  the  lowest  state,  they  are  merely  susceptible  of  having 
an  impression  made  upon  them.  In  the  intermediate  state,  the 
brain  has  sufficient  vitality  to  act  under  the  effect  of  stimulus.  In 
a  still  more  highly  organized  state,  it  has  the  power  to  act,  not  as 
in  the  stage  below,  by  the  application  of  stimulus,  but  by  self- 
stimulation.  It  is  so  strong  that  it  acts  of  its  own  self  Therefore 
its  action  is  called  "automatic."  What  we  call  "genius,"  belongs 
to  one  whose  organization  is  so  fine  and  large  that  it  acts  by  its 
own  stimulus ;  and  Avhere  this  is  the  case  in  the  whole  brain.,  it  is 
universal  genius.     If  it  is  on  the  art  side  alone,  we  have  an  art- 


SPIMITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUEE.  387 

genius.  He  is  a  genius  in  but  one  directioi^  A  man  is  a  genius  in 
the  direction  in  whicli  his  faculties  are  highly  organized.. 

Now,  it  is  certainly  true  that  men  who  are  organized  highly 
work  more  easily  and  more  fruitfully  than  others ;  but  it  is  not 
true  that  they  do  not  have  to  work  much.  It  is  not  true  that  men 
ever  have  results^  even  if  they  are  men  of  genius,  for  which  they  do 
not  labor.  That  is  indispensable.  There  is  no  man  that  lives  who 
feeds  on  miracles.  All  men  are  under  the  government  of  God, 
which  is  a  government  of  cause  and  effect,  whether  it  be  easier  or 
harder. 

The  eagle  gets  over  the  ground  a  great  deal  faster  and  easier 
than  the  ant ;  but  the  ant  gets  over  the  ground.  And  the  eagle, 
although  he  gets  over  more  ground  in  a  second  than  the  ant  does 
in  an  hour,  does  it  by  Avork  of  wing,  employing  muscular  power, 
just  as  the  ant  does. 

So  the  highest  natures,  although  they  get  over  the  ground  much 
faster  than  the  lower  and  more  vulgar  natures,  do  it  in  the  same 
way.  Their  power  is  greater,  but  it  is  under  the  same  laws.  And 
a  man  who  is  never  so  much  a  genius  is  not  released  from  the  re- 
sponsibility of  study,  of  practice,  of  education,  and  of  applying 
means  to  ends. 

If  a  man  is  near-sighted,  and  feeble-sighted  at  that,  and  reads 
with  extreme  difficulty,  spelling  every  word  as  he  goes  along,  he 
toils  a  great  deal  more  than  I  do,  who,  looking  at  the  page,  take  in 
at  one  glance  the  whole  verse,  though  I  take  it  in  by  the  same 
method  that  he  does.  When  you  analyze  it  and  trace  it  to  its 
elements,  it  is  the  same  act,  performed  under  the  same  law,  by  the 
same  operation.  The  only  difference  is  in  the  rapidity — and  that 
comes  by  practice. 

Men  who  have  intuition  instantly  see  into  things ;  but  the 
seeing  is  by  the  same  process,  and  in  accordance  with  the  same  rule, 
as  it  is  in  the  case  of  those  who  go  through  slow  and  delayed  and 
grudging  steps.  Because  a  man  is  a  genius,  it  does  not  follow  that 
he  is  one  to  whom  everything  is  revealed — to  whom  thoughts 
come,  and  in  whom  emotions  arise — without  any  preparation  or  re- 
sponsibility, lie  may  be  a  genius  in  poetry ;  but  the  most  eminent 
poets  have  been  the  hardest  students  since  the  world  began.  He 
may  be  a  genius  in  military  affairs;  but  no  man  ever  trained  him- 
self more  assiduously  in  military  affah's  than  Ccesar,  or  Napoleon, 
or  Frederick,  or  any  other  of  the  greatest  generals.  It  is  work  that 
furnishes  the  fulcrum  by  which  genius  labors. 

In  general,  men  believe  that  if  ordinary  people  are  to  be  intelli- 
gent they  must  study.     If  they  are  to  have  skill  in  any  direction, 


388  SPIBITUA L  FB  UIT-  C ULTUEE. 

they  must  practice  for  it.  This  is  specially  true  as  yon  go  up.  If 
you  take  tlje  higher  range  of  mental  experience,  no  man  is  supposed 
to  be  a  good  metaphysician  by  nature.  Men  come  to  skill  in  meta- 
physics— not  by  nature,  but  by  practice ;  by  endeavor.  The  higher 
forms  of  intellection  are  by  special  endeavor.  No  matter  how  much 
musical  endowment  persons  may  have,  they  do  not  feel  that  they 
are  musicians  till  they  have  had  long  and  patient  drill.  The  night- 
ingale asks  for  no  master,  and  sings  without  notes,  and  sings  to  the 
night,  and  sings  to  the  stars,  and  sings  to  itself;  but  it  sings  only 
what  the  nightingale  thinks  and  feels.  Much  as  we  talk  of  the 
sweetness  of  the  nightingale's  music,  what  is  there  in  ten  thousand 
nightingales,  singing  through  ten  thousand  moonlit  nights,  out  of 
the  thickets,  that  can  compare  for  one  single  moment  with  a 
symphony  of  Mozart  or  Beethoven  or  Haydn  ?  There  is  thought, 
there  is  moral  feeling,  there  is  affection,  there  is  hope,  joy,  aspira- 
tion, grief,  wailing,  there  is  the  whole  range  of  life,  in  a  true  musi- 
cian's work;  but  in  the  singing  of  birds  there  are  a  few  notes 
which  mean  what  you  make  them  mean,  but  in  and  of  themselves 
are  they  nothing.  He  that  is  called  of  God  to  be  a  musician,  is  sim- 
ply called  to  prepare  himself  to  be  a  musician.  His  knowledge 
comes  by  study  and  training. 

Some  persons  are  born  more  graceful  than  others ;  but  no  man 
becomes  entirely  graceful  without  culture.  Training  in  manners, 
in  postures,  in  athletic  exercises — especially  those  which  are  de- 
signed to  give  grace  and  beauty,  and  personal  accomplishment  or 
embellishment ;  all  that  relates  to  the  esthetic  part  of  the  mind  of 
man — these  things  produce  their  fruit.  All  men,  seeing  what  they 
desire,  seek  it  by  the  application  of  ascertained'  causes  which  pro- 
duce such  and  such  effects. 

It  is  only  when  we  come  to  the  next  higher  range  of  faculties — 
to  the  moral  sentiments — that  men  begin  to  act  on  an  entirely 
different  scheme.  If  it  is  drill  of  body;  if  it  is  common  sense;  it 
it  is  the  application  of  thought-power  and  will  to  the  commercial 
affairs  of  life  and  mechanical  operations;  if  it  is  anything  which 
relates  to  the  school;  if  it  is  the  cultivation  of  thought  and  taste; 
if  it  is  the  achievement  of  results  clear  up  to  the  sphere  of  moral 
sense  and  religious  feeling — the  law  is  without  variableness  oi 
shadow  of  turning.  We  have  that  which  we  seek,  and  seek  by 
proper  methods.  Though  mai  are  taught,  and  justly,  to  pray  for 
the  things  which  they  earn,  and  which  they  gain  by  studious  en- 
deavor, yet  every  man  feels  that  there  is  such  a  relation  between 
cause  and  effect  that  it  is  absurd  lo  ask  for  anything  for  which  he 
does  not  labor. 


SPIEITUAL  FB  UIT-  C ULTUBE.  389 

I  ask  God  to  bless  the  season;  but  it  never  prevents  me  from 
studying  the  nature  of  plants,  and  discovering  their  laws,  and 
bringing  to  bear  my  knowledge  of  them  in  their  cultivation,  treat- 
ing one  according  to  its  nature,  and  another  according  to  its  nature, 
and  using  my  experience  in  the  application  of  causes  to  the  produc- 
tion of  effects.  In  business,  the  great  bulk  of  men's  lives  is  spent 
in  gaining  results  by  the  application  of  means  to  ends,  according  to 
the  methods  which  experience  has  taught  us  to  be  best. 

But  when  we  come  into  the  realm  of  religion,  there  is  the  im- 
pression that  God  works  there  by  the  efficiency  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  that  there  is  in  that  particular  realm  such  an  irresistible 'sweep 
of  the  divine  Spirit,  that  the  peculiar  and  distinguishing  qualities 
of  Christian  experience  fall  down  from  heaven  upon  us  of  their  own 
accord,  as  the  dewdrops  fall  upon  the  flowers — that  they  are  put 
upon  us  by  the  Spirit  as  clean  raiment  is  put  upon  the  child  by  the 
mother.  Men  have  the  impression  that  religion  is  something  so 
different  from  other  exercises  that  there  is  a  different  order  and  a 
different  law  that  govern  it.  There  is  a  lingering  feeling  that  while 
we  must  work  for  worldly  ends,  we  must  wait  for  spiritual  ends ; 
that  while  we  must  apply  causes  for  the  procuring  of  results  which 
relate  to  the  intellect  or  the  bodily  or  the  social  sphere,  for  the  higher 
spiritual  elements  we  must  pray. 

Now,  we  must  pray  for  everything  that  it  is  proper  for  us  to 
have.  AVe  must  pray  for  the  highest  things,  and  for  the  lowest. 
But  I  affirm  that  there  is  no  more  reason  that  we  should  pray  for 
morality  than  for  corn.  There  is  no  more  reason  that  we  should 
pray  for  meekness  than  for  flowers.  There  is  no  more  reason  that 
we  should  pray  for  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  changing  our 
hearts  than  in  changing  the  condition  of  our  bodies,  if  we  are  sick, 
to  a  state  of  health.  It  is  proper  to  pray  in  either  case,  because  we 
are  working  in  a  double  sphere  of  activity — the  physical  and  the 
spiritual.  Whether  we  are  working  for  the  body,  for  the  intellect, 
for  the  social  life,  or  for  the  life  of  the  soul,  we  co-operate  with  the 
divine  mind ;  and  there  is  a  reason  for  supplication  in  one  part  of 
the  mind  as  much  as  in  another.  There  is  no  more  occasion  for 
praying  in  the  realm  of  moral  thought  than  in  the  realm  of  the  in- 
tellect ;  no  more  in  the  realm  of  tl\e  highest  faculties  than  in  the 
reahn  of  the  lowest.  There  is  just  the  same  reason  for  studying  and 
laboring  for  the  things  which  pertain  to  the  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness that  there  is  for  laboring  for  the  things  which  pertain  to  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world. 

To  a  large  extent  this  impression  springs  from  the  idea  that  re- 
ligion is  something  other  than  the  action  of  a  man's  own  nature ; 


390  8PIBITUAL  FBUIT-CVLTUBK 

that  it  is  in  such  a  sense  a  divine  creation  that  it  cannot  be  said  to 
pi"oceed  from  tlie  normal  action  of  the  faculties  of  the  human  soul. 
There  have  been  those  who  sujjposed  that  a  new  set  of  faculties  was 
created  upon  conversion.  There  are  those  who  suppose  that  the 
action  of  every  pjirt  of  a  man's  mind  is  so  inherently  wrong  that 
nothing  which  a  man  can  think  or  feel  or  do  can  be  properly  called 
religion.  There  are  still  others  who  believe  that  there  descends 
from  God  a  mystic  grace,  an  intangible  and  inexplicable  element ; 
and  that  it  is  the  descending  of  this  upon  the  soul  that  constitutes 
its  religiousness. 

Eeligiousness  is  simply  right-mindedness  toward  God  and  toward 
man.  He  that  carries  all  the  faculties  of  his  being  reverently,  lov- 
ingly and  obediently,  according  to  the  divine  law,  is  religious.  To 
be  religious  is  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  the  mind  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest  of  its  endowments.  Although  in  the  re- 
ligious life  there  are  some  actions  and  experiences  which  are  higher 
than  others,  yet  all  right  actions  are  religious.  You  have  not  two 
minds,  one  to  think  about  the  world  with,  and  the  other  to  think 
about  God  with.  You  have  not  two  hearts,  one  of  which  is  used 
for  religion,  and  the  other  of  which  is  used  for  natural  purposes. 
That  mind  which  you  have  according  to  the  requisition  of  God  is 
always  in  harmony  with  that  nature  which  he  has  given  to  us. 

People  have  had  this  impression — that  religious  results  come, 
not  by  education,  and  not  by  specialized  causes  for  certain  effects, 
but  by  some  mysterious  power  which  results  from  the  efficiency  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Now,  such  is  my  behef  in  the  reality  and  existence 
and  agency  of  the  divine  Spirit,  that  I  think  I  should  have  no  hope 
and  no  faith  as  a  minister  and  as  a  laborer  for  the  enfranchisement  of 
mankind,  if  it  were  not  that  I  believed  there  was  an  all-prevalent, 
vitalizing,  divine  Spirit.  I  should  as  soon  attempt  to  raise  flowers 
if  there  were  no  atmosphere,  or  produce  fruits  if  there  were  neither 
light  nor  heat,  as  I  should  attempt  to  regenerate  men  if  I  did  not 
believe  there  was  a  Holy  Ghost.  I  have  faith  in  the  divine  Spirit 
spread  abroad  over  the  whole  human  family,  which  is  really  the 
cause  of  life  in  the  higher  directions;  and  it  is  this  faith  that  gives 
me  hope  and  courage  in  all  labor. 

Nevertheless,  this  divine  influence  is  not  irresistible  in  such  a 
sense  as  to  relieve  men  from  the  responsibility  of  developing  every 
one  of  the  spiritual  elements.  The  Spirit  of  God  does  not  sweep 
over  the  mind  and  cleanse  it  from  everything  that  is  wrong,  and  in- 
stitute in  it  everything  that  is  right,  and  then  maintain  it  in  its 
regenerated  state  by  divine  efficiency.  God  wakes  up  the  soul,  aud 
then  says  to  it,  "  Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trem- 


SPIRITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUEE.  391 

bling ;  for  it  is  God  that  worketli  iu  you  to  will  and  to  do  of  his 
good  pleasure."  That  is  the  ground  on  which  we  work.  The  in- 
spiration of  the  divine  mind  gives  us  possession  of  our  own  facul- 
ties, and  we  are  to  labor  with  them,  applying  the  proper  causes  for 
the  attainment  of  given  results,  as  much  in  religious  as  in  secular 
things. 

In  the  light  of  this  explanation,  I  remark,  first,  that  men  wish 
to  be  converted  so  that  the  whole  field  shall  be  cleared,  and  so  that 
they  will  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  right  forward  in  the  new 
life.  They  believe,  as  it  were,  that  if  God  will  only  touch  the  rock, 
and  let  the  springs  of  sanctified  affection  gush  out,  then,  just  as 
soon  as  they  have  found  their  channel,  their  life  will  be  like  the 
running  of  a  brook  out  of  the  mountains  and  through  its  channel, 
down  to  its  destination,  unchecked  and  undisturbed.  They  think 
that  if  they  are  once  converted,  they  are  converted  for  all  time.  It 
used  to  be  taught  that,  once  a  deacon,  always  a  deacon ;  once  an 
elder,  always  an  elder ;  once  a  minister,  always  a  minister ;  and,  ac- 
cording to  this  general  scheme,  once  converted,  always  converted. 
And  so  men  feel  that  when  God  takes  hold  of  a  man's  heart, 
when  the  man  is  regenerated,  when  by  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  he  is  translated  from  the  kingdom  of  Satan  and  darkness 
into  the  kingdom  of  light  and  of  God's  dear  Son,  it  is  a  work  that  is 
completed.    I  say  it  is  not  a  completed  work. 

Here  is  a  man  who  has  been  lying  around,  a  lazy  vagabond,  suck- 
ins:  his  substance  from  those  to  whom  he  is  related,  and  he  is  taken 
to  the  great  West,  put  upon  a  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of 
ground,  and  told  to  work  out  his  own  living.  He  has  his  ground  ; 
he  owns  it;  he  is  no  longer  one  of  the  lazzaroni ;  and  he  goes  to 
work  on  his  farm.  It  is  not  converted  yet.  It  has  on  it  thorns 
and  briers  and  weeds,  and  it  brings  him  in  nothing,  at  first ;  but 
he  goes  to  work,  and  by  his  industry  and  application  begins  to  de- 
velop its  resources.  He  is  an  honest  yeoman,  he  is  the  owner  of 
property,  and  he  has  been  converted  from  a  street-beggar  into  a  man 
of  means  and  respectability ;  hut  his  own  conversion  is  not  com- 
plete, any  more  than  the  conversion  of  his  farm  is  complete,  which 
he  has  begun  to  cultivate,  but  Avhich  needs  much  tilling  to  bring  it 
to  a  state  of  perfection.  When  a  man  is  converted,  he  has  a.  new 
start — that  is  all.  The  work  of  his  conversion  is  not  carried 
through. 

Now,  no  man  was  ever  taken  from  darkness  to  light  so  that  he 
saw  clear  through  to  the  kingdom  of  glory  at  one  glance.  When 
a  man  is  taken  out  of  the  gall  of  bitterness  and  the  bonds  of  in- 
iquity, the  augel  comes  to  him  as  he  did  to  Peter,  knocks  off  his 


392  8P1BITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUBE. 

chains,  opens  the  door,  and  says,  "Else  up,  and  go  out."  And 
when  he  has  risen  up  and  gone  out,  he  has  to  find  his  own  way  to 
his  friends,  and  has  to  get  his  hviug  as  best  he  can. 

In  regard  to  rehgious  things,  men  are  under  precisely  the  same 
necessity  of  drill  and  education,  and  of  the  application  of  means 
to  ends,  that  they  are  in  any  other  sphere  of  life.  If  a  man,  there- 
fore, expects  that  there  is  any  labor-saving  conyersiou,  he  is  greatly 
mistaken. 

"  But,"  it  is  asked,  "  when  Paul  was  converted,  was  not  his 
conversion  instantaneous  ?"  Yes,  his  conversion  was  instantaneous 
— only  in  that  sense,  however,  in  which  the  conversion  of  any  other 
man  is  instantaneous.  His  will  was  changed  at  a  defiuita  point  of 
time ;  and  that  is  so  in  the  case  of  nearly  everybody  who  is  con- 
verted. "  Was  he  not  made  an  apostle  almost  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  ?"  No.  He  was  struck,  and  dumfounded,  and  blinded,  and 
confused,  and  was  sent  to  Damascus ;  and  he  lay  crying  and  pray- 
ing until  Ananias  was  sent  to  him  to  tell  him  what  the  experience 
which  he  was  going  through  was  for ;  and  then  he  went  into  an 
experimental  apostleship.  He  began  as  a  little  child.  There  is 
unquestionable  evidence  that  he  came  more  and  more  to  the  dis- 
closure of  himself  as  God's  grace  was  manifested  in  him.  He  was 
no  exception  to  the  universal  law. 

If  men  who  want  to  be  Christians,  instead  of  waitiug  for  some 
great  shock  to  come  upon  them,  would  begin  to  be  .Christian  at 
once,  how  much  better  it  would  be  !  We  will  suppose  that  a  maiT 
is  a  spendthrift,  who  has  got  money  without  much  scruple,  and 
let  it  go  with  still  less.  After  a  time,  hearing  a  discourse  on  the 
folly  of  dishonesty  and  spendthriftness  and  the  wisdom  of  honesty 
and  frugality,  he  says,  "  If  it  should  please  God  to  make  me  an  up- 
right, safe,  snug,  frugal  man,  I  believe  I  would  reform."  What 
would  you  say  to  such  a  man  ?  I  would  say  to  him,  "  Do  not  stand 
waiting  till  God  makes  you  a  man  of  frugality  and  integrity.  You 
can  make  yourself  one  if  you  try. 

There  stands  a  dishonest  man,  a  thief,  (if  in  our  day  such  a 
man  be  considered  dishonest)  and  at  last  some  superstitious  influ- 
ence comes  over  him,  and  he  wants  to  be  an  honest  man  ;  and  he 
says,  "  Oh,  that  God's  grace  would  only  make  me  an  honest  man !" 
The  apostle  says  to  him,  "  Let  him  that  stole  steal  no  more."  That 
is  the  way  to  get  out  of  thiefdom  into  honestdom. 

A  worldly,  selfish,  proud  man,  a  man  who  is  anything  but  true 
and  right,  says,  "  I  think  that  if  God  would  convert  me  I  would  be- 
gin to  live  a  Christian  life."  Well,  why  do  you  not  begiu  to  live 
such  a  life  now  ?     Do  you  suppose  a  boy  is  ever  suddenly  converted 


8PIBITUAL  FB  UIT- C ULTUBE.  393 

into  a  carpenter  ?  He  is  apprenticed  to  a  carpenter,  and  after  he 
has  served  a  certain  term,  he  is  a  carpenter  himself.  Do  you  sup- 
pose a  man  is  ever  converted  into  a  lawyer  at  once  ?  At  first  he  is 
a  scrivener ;  and  by  and  by,  when,  by  study  and  practice,  he  be- 
comes acquainted  with  the  principles  of  the  law  and  the  affairs  of 
the  profession  in  which  he  is  employed,  he  deserves  to  be  called  a 
lawyer.  Do  not  wait,  therefore,  for  the  fruits  of  a  Christian  life 
before  you  begin  to  live  like  a  Christian.  Begin  instantly.  You 
have  capital  enough  to  begin  on. 

No  man  should  wait  for  conversion.  That  is  conversion  wh' 
a  man,  having  been  wrong,  wants  to  be  right,  and  begins  to  be 
right.  That  is  as  much  as  conversion  amounts  to  anywhere.  No 
man,  being  converted,  is  anything  else  than  a  sinner  trying  to  be- 
come better.  When  persons  are  brought  into  the  church  as  con- 
verted persons,  do  you  suppose  we  think  they  are  perfect,  or  any- 
thing like  it?  Do  you  suppose  in  the  sight  of  God  they  are  other 
than  poor,  weak  creatures  who,  having  gone  astray,  are  feebly  striv- 
ing to  get  into  the  right  path  ?  They  are  scholars.  They  are 
pupils.  They  are  learners.  "  Follow  me,"  said  Christ,  '■'  and  learn 
of  me."  They  are  Christ's  disciples,  going  to  school,  where  they 
can  be  taught  and  helped  to  make  attainment  in  the  Christian 
course.  They  are  like  pupils  who  undertake  to  learn  arithmetic, 
or  grammar,  or  history,  or  any  other  branch  of  instruction,  and  go 
where  they  can  obtain  the  needed  assistance.  The  law  which  gov- 
erns men  in  the  attempt  to  achieve  results  in  a  Christian  life  is  not 
different  from  the  law  which  governs  them  in  the  attempt  to 
achieve  results  in  general  intelligence.  If  your  conscience  is  to  be 
made  a  spiritual  conscience,  it  is  to  be  made  so  in  accordance  with 
the  same  analogies  by  which  you  are  made  wise  in  the  application 
of  business  in  any  direction.  I  proclaim  the  universal  law  of  edu- 
cation and  development  which  runs  through  the  whole  scale  of  the 
faculties,  on  the  religious  side  of  man  as  much  as  on  the  secular 
side. 

Men  often  hope,  after  they  are  converted  and  have  a  name  to  live 
for,  that  in  many  respects  they  are  better.  But  they  tend  to  ask 
God  to  wean  them  from  their  sins  and  faults,  so  that  they  need  not 
have  the  trouble  of  doing  it  themselves. 

Here  are  men  who  are  addicted  to  many  sins  of  the  flesh.  Men's 
fleshly  sins  come  largely  with  their  organization.  Men  who  are 
built  long,  lean,  bloodless,  and  never  know  what  temptation  is,  can 
have  very  little  pity  upon  men  who  are  short,  and  chunky,  and  very 
sanguineous,  and  have  immense  basilar  appetites.  Two  such  men 
cannot  understand  each  other.     A  man  who  is  not  organized  so  as 


394  SPIRITUAL  FEUIT-CULTUBE. 

to  be  naturally  greedy  cannot  understand  how  that  man  can  make 
such'a  pig  of  himself.  He  never  felt  like  a  pig.  And  the  man  who 
has  these  fleshly  appetites  says,  "  I  may  be  a  glutton,  and  I  may  drink 
to  excess,  but  I  never  was  mean  enough  to  pinch  a  penny  till  I 
made  it  squeal,  as  that  man  does.  I  am  a  generous  man."  Every 
man  is  conscious  of  his  own  temptations  to  sin,  and  that  he 
is  not  the  victim  of  this  and  that  besetting  sin.  Every  man  knows 
that  he  cannot  be  guilty  of  two  opposite  sins  at  the  same  time.  A 
man  cannot  be  a  spendthrift  and  a  miser  during  the  same  instant. 
A  man  does  not  love  fleshly  enjoyments  at  the  same  time  that  he 
is  only  addicted  to  the  vice  of  selfishness. 

But  when  men  find  themselves  beset  by  these  appetites  they 
pray  against  them.  Sometimes  they  set  a  day  apart  in  which  to 
pray.  I  do  not  ridicule  prayer.  Prayer  is  right.  And  if  a  man 
eats  too  much,  I  think  he  does  a  very  good  thing  to  pray  to  God  ; 
but  his  praying  will  not  benefit  him  if  he  does  not  do  anything 
else.  It  is  perfectly  right  for  a  man  to  ask  God  to  help  him  if  he 
drinks  too  much ;  but  he  does  not  do  enough  if  he  only  prays. 

What  would  a  man  do  if  he  was  sick  in  his  body?  What 
would  a  man  do  if  he  had  the  dropsy  on  him,  or  a  fever  beating  in 
him  ?  He  would  pray  God  to  bless  him ;  but  he  would  do  more 
than  that :  he  would  send  for  the  doctor,  and  take  medicine,  or 
take  the  necessary  steps  to  get  well. 

If  a  man  is  organized  so  that  he  is  subject  to  the  lusts  of  ^lie 
flesh,  it  is  not  enough  for  him  to  sit  down  and  pray  God  to  help 
him.  You  must  deal  with  yourself  as  one  having  a  moral  disease, 
and  apply  the  proper  remedies.  Do  you  suppose  that  if  a  man 
gorges  himself  with  flesh  meats,  and  is  feverish,  he  can  be  relieved 
by  simply  praying?  Is  there  any  use  in  a  man's  praying  for  an- 
gelic influences  when  he  is  feeding  himself  with  hell-fire  all  the 
time  ? 

Avoid  those  things  which  over-stimulate.  Avoid  the  places 
where  you  fall  easily.  Avoid  all  things  which  stand  connected 
with  your  ruin  or  danger.  If  a  man's  soil  is  swampy,  and  breeds 
malaria  every  year,  and  needs  draining,  does  he  pray  that  God  will 
drain  it?  No,  nothing  of  the  sort.  And  God  Avould  not  drain  it 
if  he  did.  He  does  not  put  a  premium  on  laziness  for  anybody's 
sake. 

Men  have  sins  of  temperament — anger  or  insensibility ;  dullness 
or  quickness ;  all  manner  of  antithetical  states.  Some  men  think 
they  must  be  very  wicked  because  they  are  so  sensitive  and  so  sub- 
ject to  anger.  Anger  is  a  bad  thing  where  one  has  too  much  of  it, 
as  fear  is;  and  there  are  sins  of  excessive  sensibility  and  of  auger 


SFIJRITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUBE.  395 

as  growing  out  of  it.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  sins  of  excessive 
insensibility.  There  are  men  who  never  feel,  of  their  own  accord, 
and  cannot  be  made  to  feel;  There  are  some  men  whose  nerves  lie 
along  near  the  surface  of  the  skin,  and  there  are  those  whose  nerves 
are  buried  deep  beneath  the  skin ;  and  the  former  are  quick  and 
sensitive,  while  the  latter  are  slow  and  dull;  and  their  temptations 
and  sins  are  on  different  sides  of  their  natures.  These  tempera- 
mental sins,  though  they  are  not  to  be  dealt  with  without  prayer, 
and  the  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  urge  us  to  something 
higher,  are  to  be  overcome  by  training  and  by  education.  Pray 
that  God  Avill  restrain  your  wrong  tendencies ;  but  take  care,  when 
you  pray,  that  you  help  yourself.  Remember  that  the  responsibility 
is  on  you. 

If  I  have  bought  a  pair  of  fiery  horses,  and  I  sit  behind  them  to 
make  my  experimental  ride,  I  do  not  think  it  unmanly  to  commit 
my  soul  to  God  and  ask  him  to  protect  me;  but  I  do  not  throw 
the  reins  down  on  the  dashboard  and  trust  to  Providence  alone.  I 
pray,  to  be  sure;  but  I  Avatch  my  horses  all  the  time.  I  drive  with 
all  the  care  that  is  possible ;  driving  for  everybody  on  the  road,  as 
every  good  driver  does,  as  well  as  for  myself— for  that  stupid  boy 
who  has  turned  out  the  wrong  way,  and  for  that  drunken  man  who 
is  taking  both  sides  of  the  road,  and  so  on. 

When  a  man  is  going  down  into  life,  and  he  knows  what  his 
weakness  is,  whether  it  be  pride,  or  selfishness,  or  auger,  or  any 
other  of  these  besetting  sins,  he  should,  in  prayer,  ask  for  protec- 
tion ;  but  prayer  will  not  secure  that  blessing  to  him  except  through 
his  own  exertions.  He  must  be  waked  up  to  will  and  to  do  of  God's 
good  pleasure.  So,  take  care  of  the  general  results,  praying  for  the 
curing  of  this  fault  and  that  fault  while  you  labor  for  that  wliicli 
you  seek  in  prayer. 

How  absurd  it  is  to  see  men  going  on  and  enjoying  themselves 
in  sin  as  long  as  they  are  prosperous,  and  then  beginning  to  pray 
when  they  are  whelmed  in  trouble !  Down  into  the  family  of  a 
man  who  has  never  known  sorrow,  swoops  an  angel,  and  takes  a 
little  child.  This  man,  full  of  feeling  as  a  well  is  of  water,  is  all 
broken  down,  and  he  pours  out  a  torrent  of  grief.  You  cannot 
touch  him  without  causing  him  to  gush  tears.  He  says,  "I  have 
been  a  great  sinner,  and  God  has  afflicted  me;  and  I  want  to  live  a 
better  life,  and  I  mean  to  be  a  different  man."  Oh,  that  this  man 
could  know  that,  if  this  flood  of  feeling  could  be  turned  on  the  mill- 
wheel  of  right  endeavor,  it  would  clear  him !  But  it  is  only  a  mo- 
mentary swell ;  and  in  the  course  of  a  fortnight  or  a  montli,  he  is 
about  as  he  was  before.     In  general,  if  left  to  chance,  that  is  about 


396  8FIBITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUEE. 

what  men  do.  That  is  about  the  way  with  men  when  they  leave 
things  to  the  Spirit  of  God. 

Men  pray  for  full  Christian  grace  in  the  spirit  in  which  the 
woman  of  Samaria,  impelled  by  the  desire  for  indulgence,  said, 
"  Give  me  that  water,  so  that  I  shall  not  need  to  come  here  to 
draw."  "  Deliver  me  from  the  labor  and  pains  of  developing  in 
myself  that  which  I  want,"  many  would  say. 

No  child,  I  suppose,  when  she  is  going  to  follow  the  notes, 
and  sees  "^"  and  "pp,''  sv'er  prays,  "Now,  Lord,  make  me 
play  according  to  those  directions,  'piano'  and  'pianissimo,'"  and 
then  sits  motionless  in  front  of  the  instrument.  What  does  she  do  ? 
She  not  only  prays,  (if  she  does  pray,)  for  God's  help,  but  she  tries  to 
follow  the  directions  herself. 

Persons  pray  that  they  may  be  humble.  Here  is  a  big  strong 
man  who  in  the  morning  prays  that  he  may  be  humble  through  the 
day;  and  in  order  to  make  it  more  effectual,  while  kneeling 
he  puts  his  head  clear  down  in  his  chair ;  and  in  order  to  make 
it  still  more  effectual  he  talks  in  an  official  voice.  When 
his  prayer  is  finished,  he  gets  up,  and  straightens  himself,  and 
goes  to  his  store,  and  storms  about  his  business.  He  is  not  going 
to  see  things  go  to  rack  and  ruin  because  nobody  feels  responsi- 
ble. And  the  man  quite  forgets  his  prayer.  He  leaves  that 
for  God  to  take  care  of.  When  he  comes  home  at  night  he 
has  some  mournful  feelings  about  the  way  in  which  he  has 
conducted  himself  through  the  day.  And  the  next  morning  he 
prays  for  humility  again.  The  experience  of  the  previous  day  is 
repeated.  At  night  his  feelings  are  mellowed  down  once  more  (for 
men  almost  always  have  the  grace  of  humility  when  they  are 
sleepy  !) ;  and  so  ho  gets  through  another  night. 

Now,  the  fault  did  not  lie  in  the  fact  that  the  man  prayed  God 
to  make  him  humble.  The  fault  lay  in  this:  that  he  thought  the 
prayer  relieved  him  from  the  responsibility  of  training  himself — 
from  the  necessity  of  the  yoke  and  the  harness.  Men  pray  for  meek- 
ness; and  yet  when  they  are  brought  into  circumstances  which  call 
for  the  exercise  of  meekness  they  forget  their  prayer. 

A  man  is  well-womaned,  and  he  prays  God  to  give  him  meek- 
ness. The  companion  that  it  has  pleased  God  to  yoke  him  with 
faults  him  about  something  in  which  he  knows  he  is  right,  and  is 
perfectly  sure  she  is  wrong ;  and  there  occurs  one  of  those  scenes 
which  may  be  called  the  chromatic  periods  of  life.  The  prnyer  in 
which  he  prayed  for  meekness  has  hardly  dried  up  on  his  lip  before 
he  flies  into  a  temper.  He  has  just  asked  God  to  give  him  meek- 
ness, and  God  sends  him  an  opportunity  to  learn  to  be  meek;  and 
when  he  sees  the  lesson  he  will  not  read  it  nor  practice  it. 


SPIBITUAL  FBVIT-OULTUBE.  307 

A  man  prays  that  ho  may  have  a  heart  to  love  God  and  his 
fellow-men ;  and  when  he  opens  the  door  to  go  ont,  a  miserable, 
poverty-stricken  boy  stands  on  the  steps,  and  asks  him  to  help  him ; 
and  he  says,  "Go  away,  you  brat,"  and  uses  some  otlier  words  which 
are  not  necessary  for  eloquence,  and  drives  the  boy  away.  Where  is 
his  prayer  ? 

You  pray  for  one  and  another  blessing,  and  God  sends  his  angels 
to  answer  your  prayer,  and  they  come  in  queer  guises,  and  you  do 
not  recognize  them,  so  you  reject  the  blessing.  You  pray  for 
strength  and  there  is  the  anvil,  and  there  is  the  hammer  to  beat  out 
that  strength  with ;  but  you  do  not  like  labor.  You  prefer  to  get 
strength;  by  praying  for  it.  You  pray  for  gentleness;  and  when  you 
are  provoked,  instead  of  being  gentle, you  are  resentful.  The  answer 
to  yom-  prayer  came  in  a  way  in  which  you  did  not  want  it  to  come. 
So  you  are  not  benefited  by  it.  You  are  like  the  woman  who  said, 
"  Draw  for  me.  Get  for  me  this  living  water,  so  that  I  shall  not 
have  to  come  here  to  draw." 

Nobody  wants  to  draw.  Everybody  wants  God  to  draw  for 
him.  And  all  through  our  Christian  experience  we  are  perpetually 
going  wrong,  not  in  the  sense  of  our  dependence  on  God,  not  in 
the  necessity  of  divine  influence  and  help,  but  in  the  truth  that 
there  is  nothing  that  we  attain  by  the  Divine  Spirit  which  we  do 
not  attain  by  drill,  by  education,  by  self-help.  It  is  through  these 
that  the  Divine  Spirit  stimulates  and  develops  in  us  those  things 
which  we  need  and  pray  for. 

Men  say,  "Will  not  such  teachings  lower  a  man's  sense  of  his 
dependence  upon  the  Holy  Spirit  ?  Are  you  not  encouraging  a 
kind  of  vain  reliance  upon  an  arm  of  flesh  ?  Are  yoii  not  giving 
men  to  suppose  that  they  work  out  unaided  all  that  they  need  ?" 
No,  I  am  not.  It  is  not  necessary  for  men  to  understand  any  such 
thing.  I  teach  you  that  you  are  to  work  out  your  own  salvation, 
(jrod  working  in  you.  I  teach  you  that  you  are  the  disciples  of 
Him  who  was  made  perfect,  perfecting  himself  through  sufi'ering, 
as  your  Captain.  I  teach  you  that  God's  laws  under  whieli  you 
live  are  uniform — the  same  in  respect  to  the  lower,  the  middle 
and  the  higher  faculties  of  your  life.  I  teach  you  that  way  which 
has  been  proved  and  tried  by  all  who  have  made  eminent  attain- 
ment in  Christian  experience.  I  teach  yoii  that  which  ought  to 
be  simple  as  A,  B,  C,  to  you.  Otherwise,  you  waste  your  life  in 
darkness.  I  teach  you  that  which  will  make  your  Christian  life 
easier,  and  enable  you  to  go  on  from  strength  to  strengtli,  every 
one  of  you,  till  you  shall  stand  in  Zion  and  before  God. 
'     Look  not  less  to  God  ;  but  let  not  lookinfjr  to  God  be  a  substi- 


398  SPIEITUAL  FBUIT-CULTUBE. 

tute  for  your  drill  and  enterprise ;  and  remember  that  what  you 
sow  you  shall  also  rcaj).  Indolence,  pride,  arrogance,  assumption, 
presumption, — if  you  sow  these,  you  shall  reap  results  correspond- 
ing to  them.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  sow  diligence,  intelligence, 
perseverence,  singleness  of  heart,  faith,  tru-^t,  hope,  you  shall  reap 
the  fruit  of  righteousness. 


PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMOK 

We  are  emboldened  to  draw  near  to  thee,  our  Father,  with  supplicating 
thought,  from  all  the  memory  of  thy  goodness— especially  from  the  memory 
of  thy  goodness  to  us.  Ever  since  we  were  born,  thy  ways  have  been  ways 
of  mercy.  From  thy  providence  we  have  derived  great  bounty.  Thy  kind- 
ness has  attended  our  footsteps.  Our  chastisements  have  been  fewer  than 
we  deserved.  Out  of  thy  love  have  com  e  to  us  great  blessi.ags.  We  look  back 
to  behold  how  much  we  have  been  builded  by  the  gifts  of  thy  hand.  Thou 
hast  given  us  strength  by  making  it  needful  to  us.  Thou  hast  given  us 
patience  by  laying  uijon  us  troubles  that  required  it.  Thou  hast  taught  us 
by  the  things  which  we  lacked.  Thou  hast  inspired  us  With  a  holy  ardor  and 
zeal. 

We  rejoice  in  all  that  thou  hast  done  by  thine  hand,  working  through 
time,  and  the  means  thereof.  We  rejoice  that  thou  hast  also  ministered  of 
thine  own  self  unto  us.  We  rejoice  that  thou  hast  imparted  thy  Spirit  to 
dwell  in  us,  and  to  stir  up  within  us  every  spring  and  fountain  of  things 
right  and  good.  We  rejoice  that  thou  hast  ministered  to  us  from  out  of  the 
invisible  sphere — though  not  without  our  prayer  and  watching  and  activity, 
and  crowning  our  labor  more  abundantly  than  we  asked  or  thought. 

We  rejoice  in  believing  that  thou  art  administering,  not  slenderly,  not 
penuriously,  giving  us  as  little  as  thou  canst.  We  rejoice  in  believing  that 
thou  art  one  that  abounds  in  mercy.  Overflowing  is  thine  heart  evermore. 
We  are  not  served  by  thee  as  we  serve  each  other.  There  is  no  selfishness  in 
thy  nature.  Thou  takest  thy  measure  of  mercy,  not  from  our  want  even, 
but  from  the  greatness  of  thine  own  heart.  So  that  thou  art  evermore  doing 
exceeding  abundantly  more  than  we  ask  or  think — yea,  more  than  we  know. 
For  thy  mercies  are  greater  than  now  we  discern.  Hereafter  we  shall  look 
back  to  see  how  much  broader  were  thy  ways  for  us  than  we  thought.  When 
we  seek  to  walk  in  a  narrow  path,  behold  how  it  stretches  invisibly  out  on 
either  side !  We  pluck  but  few  ckisters,  though  thousands  wait  for  us.  We 
rejoice  in  the  bounty  of  such  a  God.  We  worship  such  a  nature.  We  mag- 
nify the  grandeur  of  such  a  goodness,  endless,  full  of  vicissitudes,  and  yet 
adapting  itself  to  our  want  all  the  way  through  life,  and  preparing  us  for  an 
entrance  into  that  higher  life  where  thou  wilt  disclose  thyself  yet  more 
radiantly. 

We  rejoice,  O  Lord,  that  we  may  believe  that  out  of  this  sphere,  and  that 
out  of  its  experience  thou  art  ministering  for  us  a  preparation  for  that 
nobler  and  higher  life  to  which  we  are  aspiring.  We  commit  ourselves  still 
to  thy  guidance.  But  we  would  not  rely  upon  thee  inertly.  We  desire  to  be 
stirred  up.  We  desire  to  wait  with  thee,  and  walk  with  thee,  and  work 
together  with  thee. 

Grant  unto  us,  we  beseech  of  thee,  the  influence  of  thy  Spirit,  that  shaU 


SPIIilTirAL  FRVIT'CULTUEE.  899 

stir  up  all  the  springs  of  hope  in  us,  that  shall  minister  to  us  things  which  are 
higher  than  the  senses.  We  pray  that  we  may  love  and  labor  in  a  sphere  of 
divine  activities,  so  that  we  shall  be  sure  of  success. 

And  now  we  commend  to  thee  all  those  who  are  in  thy  presence — and 
each  one  severally.  Discern  the  hearts.  Behold  each  one's  need ;  and  grant 
thy  blessing  to  each  one  according  to  his  necessity,  and  not  according  to  his 
wisdom  in  asking.  There  are  those  who  struggle  with  poverty.  There  are 
those  who  are  in  the  midst  of  care,  and  are  harassed  day  by  day.  There 
are  those  who  are  burdened— heavily  laden.  Bring  all  of  them  within  the 
sphere  of  thy  mercies.  May  they  receive  the  loving  nature  of  God.  There 
are  those  who  are  in  deep  affliction.  There  are  those  upon  whom  the  waves 
have  rolled,  overwhelming  them.  There  are  some  who  have  sunk  while 
attempting  to  walk  across  the  stormy  sea  to  Jesus.  O  Lord,  we  pray  that 
thou  wilt  console  those  whom  no  earthly  nature  can  comfort.  Grant  the 
comfort  of  thine  own  royal  nature  to  them.  May  those  who  sink  in  tribula- 
tion be  biwyed  up  as  upon  the  ocean-heart  of  God.  We  pray  that  they  may  be 
able  to  trust  in  thee,  not  alone  when  they  lose  sight  of  the  way  in  which  they 
lack  comfort,  but  above  all  when  it  is  night,  and  they  see  no  way,  and  have 
no  refuge  but  God.  And  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  out  of  afflictions 
and  bereavements  and  trials  of  eveiy  kind  may  come  forth  the  pure  gold  of 
a  richer  Christian  experience.  We  pray  that  the  dross  of  tribulation  may  be 
consumed,  and  that  faith  may  abide,  and  that  the  strength  of  heart  may 
grow,  and  that  as  the;  outward  man  perishes  day  by  day,  the  inward  man 
may  be  renewed.  And  so  may  we  be  strong  in  holy  thoughts— stronger  in  a 
true  and  disinterested  kindness — stronger  in  the  faith  of  God's  goodness; 
stronger  in  the  hope  of  immoi-tality ;  stronger  in  that  patience  which  awaits 
every  trial,  and  takes  every  needful  and  inevitable  cup,  however  bitter; 
stronger  in  the  belief  that  death  itself  is  the  opening  of  the  gate  of  heaven. 

Grant  that  so  by  all  our  knowledge  of  God,  by  all  that  comes  upon  us 
from  without  or  from  within,  we  may  lind  ourselves  borne  by  the  hand  of 
our  Teacher  toward  those  nobler  virtues  of  a  Christian  manhood  which  thou 
hast  ordained  for  us. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  those  who  stand  in  the  family  relation,  to 
whom  thou  hast  committed  thy  little  ones,  and  who  are  rearing  them  in 
affection,  not  for  their  own  prosperity  in  this  world  only,  but  rather  for  God 
and  for  immortjility.  Grant  that  parents  may  never  let  go  the  thought  of 
their  ownership  in  their  children.  In  all  their  aberrations,  in  all  their  inex- 
perience, in  all  their  sufferings,  in  all  their  sickness,  may  they  still  feel  that 
they  are  God's  little  ones,  and  that  he  loves  them  more  than  the  parent  can, 
and  is  caring  for  them,  and  will  care  for  them. 

We  commit  to  thine  holy  care  all  those  who  are  young;  all  those  who  are 
emerging  from  control  into  self-control ;  all  those  who  are  taking  their  first 
steps  upon  the  plane  of  manhood.  We  pray  that  they  may  be  fortified. 
May  their  hearts  maintain  the  simplicity  of  virtue.  May  they  still  maintain 
faith  in  God,  and  good  will  toward  men,  and  walk  uprightly  and  surely,  and 
aspire,  not  for  the  things  of  this  world  alone,  but  for  that  more  glorious 
inheritance  which  awaits  them  in  the  kingdom  of  their  Father. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  our  Sabbath  Schools  and  our  Bible  Classes, 
and  all  that  are  taught  therein,  and  all  who  teach  them.  We  pray  that  the 
blessing  of  God  which  hath  been  with  us  so  far  in  the  year  may  still  company 
with  us. 

Bless  all  who  have  been  gathered  by  the  faithfulness  of  thy  servants  out 
of  the  world  and  from  their  evil  hal)its.  Confirm  them  in  good,  and  make 
it  easier  for  them  to  overcome  the  temptations  of  the  dt-vil. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  upou  those  who  shall  go  forth 


400  SFIBIl  UAL  FE UIT-CULTUEE. 

ioto  the  streets,  and  into  jails,  and  hospitals,  and  prisons,  and  every  where, 
that  they  may  find  the  lost  and  save  them.  May  they  be  led  by  thy  divinest 
Spirit.  May  they  have  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  in  themselves,  and  be  able  to 
impart  it  to  others. 

We  pray,  O  Lord,  that  all  thy  churches  may  shine  as  lights  in  the  midst 
of  this  great  city.  May  all  thy  servants  be  strengthened  to  declare  the  coun- 
sels of  God  among  men.  We  pray  for  the  spread  of  religion,  pure  and  unde- 
flled.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bring  together  more  and  more  perfectly  all 
classes  of  men.    Wilt  thou  bless  all  conditions  of  life. 

We  pray  for  intelligence  and  morality  and  piety.  We  pray  for  purity 
and  truth  and  justice. 

We  beseech  of  thee  that  thy  kingdom  may  come,  not  in  our  land  alone, 
but  in  all  nations.  Hasten  that  day  when  wars  shall  no  longer  break  out 
between  nations.    May  peace  prevail. 

And  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  guide  the  counsels  of  those  who 
are  appointed  to  take  charge  of  the  things  which  pertain  to  the  national 
welfare.  Remember  the  President  of  these  United  States,  and  all  those  who 
are  in  authority  with  him.  Remember  legislators  and  magistrates.  May 
this  great  nation  be  blessed  in  those  who  are  set  to  rule  over  it. 

Remember  those  who  govern  in  all  nations.  May  they  govern  with  mod- 
eration, and  in  the  fear  of  God,  and  'for  the  welfare  of  this  people. 

And  may  that  day  hasten  when  there  shall  be  no  more  ignorance  and 
superstition,  but  when  knowledge  and  godliness  shall  rule  in  all  the  earth. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  the  praise.  Father,  Son  and  Spirit.    Amen. 


PEAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  word  of  instruction,  and 
grant  that  every  day  we  may  be  stimulated  to  a  wiser  life,  and  to  better 
attainments.  May  we  not  call  upon  thee  to  do  our  work,  but  wilt  thou  help 
us  by  stirring  us  up  mightily  to  do  thy  work.  Work  in  us  to  will  and  to  do. 
Grant,  when  we  desire,  that  we  may  feel  that  thou  art  moving  upon  our 
desires.  And  so  may  we  rouse  ourselves  up  to  more  faithfulness,  and  more 
continuity,  and  greater  and  wiser  effort. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  the  services  of  the  morning.  Go  with  us  to 
our  several  homes.  May  this  be  a  day  of  blossoming  with  joy  to  all.  May 
we  love  one  another  more  because  it  is  the  Lord's  day,  and  be  more  and 
more  grateful  because  of  it.  May  we  think  of  all  the  favors  of  the  week. 
While  we  remember  our  sins  and  transgressions,  and  repent  and  mourn 
over  them,  grant  that  higher  than  these  may  be  the  flame  of  gratitude 
and  holy  trust.  Grant  that  we  may  have  hope  in  the  future.  May  we  not 
live  as  children  of  God,  like  slaves ;  may  we  walk  as  those  who  are  heirs  of 
heaven,  worthy  of  our  vocation.  And  may  men  see  that  there  is  nobility  in 
us  and  upon  us,  not  of  outward  things  but  of  our  interior  nature.  May  we 
have  nobler  thoughts,  and  take  pride  in  that  which  is  good.  May  we  have  a 
nobler  conception  of  things  that  are  godlike.  And  so  may  we  overcome  our 
easily  besetting  sins,  and  reach  that  line  where  there  is  no  sin,  but  joy 
forever. 

And  to  thy  name,  Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  shall  be  the  praise.    Amen. 


XXII. 

The  Aims  and  Methods  of  Christian 

Life. 


AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  ClffilSTIAN 

LIFE. 


"  Repent  ye,  therefore,  and  be  converted,  that  your  sins  may  be  blotted 
out,  when  the  times  of  refreshing  shall  come  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord; 
and  he  shall  send  Jesus  Christ,  which  before  was  preached  unto  you." — 
Acts  III.  19,  20. 


It  is  impossible  for  us  to  stand  connected  with  religions  truth 
just  as  they  did  to  whom  the  Gospel  was  first  made  known.  We  are 
not  of  the  Jews.  We  have  no  system  to  escape  from  such  as  controlled 
them.  We  have  no  such  doubts  respecting  Jesus  Christ  as  they 
had.  We  cannot,  as  they  did,  receive  the  Gospel  as  "tidings "  or 
" news"  in  any  sense.  It  is  not  only  not  novel,  but  it  is  one  of  the 
most  familiar  things  possible,  to  our  minds.  The  very  things  which 
in  that  early  day  held  their  minds  in  suspense,  and  led  to  discus- 
sion, are  things  which  are  as  familiar  to  us  as  the  alphabet.  Xor 
can  we  possibly  be  called  to  acknowledge  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in 
such  a  way  as  they  were.  For,  it  does  not  mean  now  what  it  meant 
then,  to  say  that  we  believe  he  was  the  Son  of  God.  It  involved 
at  that  time  such  a  breadth  of  commitment ;  it  implied  such  a  re- 
cession from  current  beliefs  and  courses,  as  cannot  possibly  occur 
again. 

And  yet,  men  are  continually  called  to  come  to  Christ.  One  of 
the  most  common  expressions,  and  one  which  is  perhaps  as  empty 
and  useless  as  almost  any  other,  is  that  familiar  saying,  "  Come 
to  Christ."  Not  that  there  is  not  a  great  mystery,  a  transcendent 
truth,  wrapped  up  in  it;  but  it  is  a  truth  which  very  seldom  shines 
out.  It  has  almost  become  language  of  cant.  There  are  those  avIio 
listen  in  a  pei'plexed  way,  and  say,  "Yes,  I  suppose  I  ought  to  come 
to  Christ ;  but  what  do  you  mean  by  coming  to  Christ  ?  I  cannot 
go  anywhere.  I  cannot  see  anybody.  What  can  I  do  ?"  They  are 
puzzled ;  and  not  the  less  because  they  are  told  to  lay  doivn  the 

Sirs-DAY  Evening,  April  21. 1872.    IiEsao.v  :  Eph.  IV.  1—16.    IlYMKS  (Plymouth  CoUoctlon), 
Nos.  31,  818, 1257 


40-1         AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CEBI8TIAN  LIFE. 

iLieapons  of  their  rehellion.  They  have  no  weapons  that  they  know 
anything  about;  and  they  do  not  know  how  to  lay  any  weapons 
down.  Figures,  metaphors,  and  illustrations,  which  were  very 
powerful  when  they  were  new,  by  being  used  as  if  they  were  normal, 
literal,  and  didactic  truths,  have  come  to  perplex  and  puzzle  men. 
Instead  of  helping,  they  hinder  them. 

I  propose,  if  I  can,  this  evening,  to  lay  before  you  some  idea  of 
what  I  mean,  and  what  I  understand  the  Scriptures  to  mean,  by  the 
beginning  of  a  Christian  life ;  what  the  aim  of  it  is,  and  what  are 
its  methods;  and  to  do  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  practicable 
for  all  who  desire  and  choose  to  live  Christianly. 

I  remark,  then,  that  while  the  Master  sometimes,  and  after  him 
the  disciples  often,  preached  the  doctrine  of  repentance  or  conver- 
sion (these  were  substantially  the  same),  they  taught  that  it  was 
only  the  outlying  preparation  for  that  which  was  to  be  the  real 
thing.  The  annunciation  of  the  truth  came  in  this  manner :  "  Pre- 
pare ye  the  way  of  the  Lord."  Every  man  becomes  a  Christian  for 
himself;  and  the  preparation  consists  in  conversion  or  repentance. 
To  stop  all  known  courses  of  evil  is  repentance.  To  cease  what 
you  know  to  be  wrong  is  conversion.  It  is  the  preparation  for  that 
which  is  the  essential  thing.  ■  Whatever  the  wrong  or  evil  may  be — 
repent,  turn  away  from  it,  that  you  may  prepare  yourself  for  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

What  is  coming  to  Christ,  then  ?  What  is  the  acceptance  of 
Christ  ?  It  is  not  possible  for  us  to  come  to  Christ  as  they  did  who 
could  see  him  in  the  bodily  form.  We  can  come  to  him  by  our 
thought,  imagining  him ;  and  by  and  by  the  image  which  we  get 
will,  in  a  persistent  Christian  life,  round  itself  out  into  great  expe- 
rience and  great  power ;  but  in  the  beginnings  of  coming  to  Christ, 
all  that  any  one  can  do  is  to  undertake  to  have  in  himself  the  spirit, 
the  controlling  disposition  of  Christ.  What  those  dispositions  are 
which  the  Saviour  expects  us  to  have,  is  not  left  for  one  single  mo- 
ment in  doubt.  If  you  will  turn  to  the  twenty-second  chapter  of 
Matthew,  and  read  the  twenty-fifth  verse,  and  on,  you  will  see  what 
they  are : 

"  Master,  which  ia  the  great  commandment  in  the  law  ?  Jesus  said  unto 
him,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment.  And 
the  second  is  like  unto  it :  thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  On  these 
two  commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets." 

A  disposition  of  love  to  God  and  of  love  to  man,  a  disposition 
of  filial  love  and  of  benevolent  love — that  is  what  is  required.  The 
declaration  of  Christ  is  what?  That  all  the  outvvorkings  of  Scrip- 
ture— its  services,  its  symbols,  its  ordinances,  its  commands,  the 


AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CHBISTIAN  LIFE.         405 

things  which  it  forbids  and  the  things  to  which  it  exhorts — spring 
out  of  this  vivific  center  of  love  to  God  and  love  to  man.  It  is  very 
simple. 

You  will  find  that  the  apostle  taught  the  same  thing  in  the  thir- 
teenth chapter  of  Romans.     Speaking  of  practical  duties,  he  says  : 

"Owe  no  man  anything,  but  to  love  one  another;  for  he  that  loveth 
another  hath  fulfilled  the  law.  For  this,  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery, 
Thou  Shalt  not  kill,  Thou  shalt  not  steal,  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness 
Thou  shalt  not  covet ;  -and  if  there  be  any  other  commandment,  it  is  briefly 
comprehended  in  this  saying,  namely.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self. Love  worketh  no  ill  to  his  neighbor :  therefore  love  is  the  fulfilling  of 
the  law." 

Here  is  precisely  the  disposition  at  which  men  are  to  aim; 
namely,  a  state  of  mind  in  which  their  feelings  toward  God  are 
feelings  of  filial  love  and  of  trust,  and  in  which  their  feelings  toward 
men  are  generically  and  specifically  emotions  of  benevolence,  of 
well-wishing,  and  of  kindness. 

Now,  let  me  take  this  as  a  standard,  and  apply  it  to  you.  Let 
me,  if  I  can,  persuade  you,  for  one  moment,  to  consider  what  has 
been  the  tendency  of  your  life  and  of  your  disposition.  Have  you 
been  accustomed  to  love — not  occasionally,  not  as  a  rare  flash  of 
experience,  but  as  the  outgrowth  of  a  disposition  in  you,  working 
day  and  night,  and  gathering  as  other  dispositions  have?  Has 
there  been  a  steady  current  of  your  soul  toward  God,  in  any  sense, 
of  love  ?  Has  there  been  in  your  experience,  continuously,  any  dis- 
position of  benevolence  toward  your  fellow  men  ?  1  do  not  ask 
whether  you  have  been  good-natured  and  kind  when  you  were 
pleased.  I  do  not  ask  whether  you  have  had  an  occasional  flush  of 
gladness  at  the  good  fortune  of  others.  I  am  speaking  of  that 
which  goes  to  make  character.  I  am  speaking  of  the  building  up 
of  a  man  in  you.  Are  the  elements  with  which  you  have  been 
building  these  two:  love  to  God,  and  love  to  men?  I  appeal  to 
your  conscience. 

We  come,  then,  to  the  very  first  step.  In  the  application  of 
this  aim  to  Christ,  and  in  this  method  of  accepting  Christ  and  liis 
spirit,  wc  find  a  foundation  for  that  which  is  called  "conviction  of 
■jin."  When  Christ  preached  the  Gospel  to  men,  tbcy  were  pro- 
foundly convinced  of  their  sinfulness;  and  the  faithful  preaching 
df  the  Gospel  in  every  generation  since  has  had  the  eflect  of  pro- 
ducing in  men  a  sense  of  personal  sinfulness. 

Many  men  say,  "■  We  are  not  depraved;  we  are  not  corrupt." 
if  by  that  you  mean  that  there  is  a  love  of  truth  in  you,  I  am  on 
four  side.  There  is  a  love  of  truth  in  you.  If  you  mean  that  there 
is  a  certain   element  of  conscience   in   you,   understanding  "de- 


406         AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  GEBISTIAN  LIFE. 

pravity "  to  mean  that  men  are  absolutely  without  any  points  of 
goodness,  then  I  am  with  you  again.  But  do  you  not  believe  if 
true  holiness  consists  in  love  to  God,  and  in  the- disposition  of  love 
toward  men,  that  in  both  of  these  respects  you  are  deficient,  if  not 
absolutely  destitute?  Have  you  had  a  constraining  power  of  love 
which  ruled  in  you  ?  Has  it  been  a  thought  of  God,  and  a  filial 
desire  to  please  him,  that  has  absolutely  fashioned  and  shaped  the 
purposes  of  your  life  and  all  the  elements  of  your  character?  And, 
bringing  it  on  to  still  more  familiar  ground,  do  you  believe  that 
from  the  time  of  your  childhood  up  to  this  hour  the  main  purpose 
of  your  life  has  been  to  make  men  better  and  happier,  and  to  use 
all  the  power  that  is  in  you  for  that  pui-pose  ? 

Men  do  not  believe  in  depravity.  They  say,  "  I  do  not  believe 
everybody  is  so  sinful  as  ministers  claim."  It  is  not  my  purpose  to 
discuss,  to-night,  what  your  ideas  of  sinfulness  may  be.  Here  is 
the  law :  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart." 
Have  you  ever  done  it  ?  This  is  one  of  the  test  questions.  It  is  a 
criterion  of  character.  Have  you  experienced  this  love  ?  Has  it 
been  more  than  a  transient  feeling  with  you  ?  Has  it  been  a  prim- 
itive, regulative,  abiding  tendency,  so  that  it  has  wrought  your  dis- 
position in  you  ?  Have  you  had  this  love  to  God  ?  If  you  have 
not,  is  not  that  a  law  which  you  understand,  which  you  approve, 
and  which  you  believe  to  be  a  noble  thing  ?  If  you  measure  your- 
self by  such  a  standard  as  that,  you  cannot  but  believe  that  you  are 
below  it. 

Take  the  other  question — that  of  sinfulness.  I  will  not  say 
that  any  of  you  have  been  stained  with  crime.  I  will  not  say  that 
you  have  been  streaked  with  vice.  I  will  not  say  that  you  have 
broken  out  into  sins  which  are  against  the  well-being  of  society, 
nor  that  you  have  been  engaged  in  an  active  round  of  mischief; 
but  the  foundations  are  in?  you  out  of  which  all  such  tendencies 
spring  in  other  men.  There  has  been  an  absence  in  you  of  a  posi- 
tive and  absolute  disposition  toward  men  of  well-wishing  and  well- 
doing. You  have  never  loved  your  neighbor  as  yourself.  Not  only 
have  you  never  done  it,  but  you  do  not  believe  you  can  do  it.  You 
do  not  believe  anybody  can  do  it.  You  think  the  doctrine  that 
any  one  can  love  his  neighbor  as  himself  is  a  poetic  ideal.  You 
regard  the  thing  as  utterly  impossible. 

But  look  at  your  disposition.  Are  your  plans  of  life,  is  youi 
idea  of  manhood,  is  your  conception  of  duty  based  upon  this  :  "1 
will  cultivate  in  myself  love,  that  I  may  diifuse  love  among  men. 
I  will  seek  to  develop  moral  beauty  in  myself,  that  I  may  instil 
moral  beauty  into  tliem,  and  elevate  them.    I  will  build  myself  up 


AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CHEISTIAN  LIFE.         407 

in  strength,  tliat  I  may  help  the  weak.  I  will  make  myself  affluent 
in  goodness,  that  I  may  succor  those  who  are  needy"  ?  Is  that  the 
aim  with  which  you  are  living?  Has  it  entered  into  your  con- 
ception that  that  should  be  the  ideal  of  human  life? 

How  is  it  with  men — even  the  men  that  we  call  good  ?  It  is, 
every  man  for  himself,  mainly;  and  for  his  larger  self,  his  family; 
and  for  his  still  larger  self,  his  set  or  clique.  Men  look  out  for 
themselves  first ;  and  then  they  look  out  for  those  around  about 
them  who  are  in  affinity  with  tliem;  and  then,  if  they  have  any 
leisure  and  any  means  left,  they  think  of  mankind,  perhaps.  Who 
is  tliere  that,  in  building  up  himself,  has  this  radical  conception : 
"  I  am  not  my  own  ;  I  am  bought  with  a  price  ;  I  am  to  look,  not 
alone  on  my  own  things,  but  also  on  the  things  of  another.  All 
men  are  my  brethren.  He  is  my  brother  who  is  in  any  trouble  or 
suffering.  That  spirit  should  be  in  me  which  was  in  Jesus  Christ, 
who  loved  the  Father,  and  said,  '  It  is  my  meat  and  drink  to  do 
his  will,'  and  showed  how  to  do  his  will  by  going  about  and  doing 
good?"     Has  benevolence  been  the  end  and  aim  of  your  life? 

Where  a  man  is  convicted  of  sin,  oftentimes  there  is  a  drarAatic 
experience.  There  is  a  sense  of  God's  law.  What  that  law  is  men 
do  not  exactly  know.  Tliey  have  a  sense  that  it  is  a  vast  power 
.above.  They  feel  that  they  are  enemies  of  God,  and  enemies  of 
God's  cause ;  and  they  are  seized  with  great  terrors  and  pangs.  And 
I  bring  home  to  3'ou  this  conviction  of  sin — this  conviction  that 
you  have  never  lived  according  to  the  law  of  kindness  or  benevo- 
lence toward  God  and  toward  men.  Such  has  not  been  the  ten- 
dency of  your  life  or  disposition  in  the  past,  and  such  is  not  the 
tendency  of  your  life  or  disposition  noAV.  If  we  measure  by  such 
a  rule  as  this,  there  is  not  one  of  us  wlio  is  not  obliged  to  say, "  The 
rule  slays  me.     I  cannot  abide  that  test." 

When,  theicfore,  you  want  to  know  whether  you  are  convicted 
of  sin  or  not,  it  very  likely  may  be  that  certain  passages  in  your 
past  life  will  come  up.  If  you  have  been  a  drunkard,  if  you  have 
been  a  sabbath-breaker,  if  you  have  been  a  profane  man,  if  you 
have  been  hard  and  usurious,  these  things  will  plague  your 
thoughts;  but  that  is  the  truest  conviction  of  sin  wliich  goes 
to  the  center,  and  says,  "My  life  and  character  are  destitute 
of  godliness  and  of  benevolence.  I  am  wrongly  built  from  the 
very  center  outward.  I  lack  and  need  tlnit  which  God  has  declared 
to  be  the  whole  law.  It  is  the  commandment  on  which  God  himself 
stands;  for  he  demands  nothing  of  us  that  he  does  not  also  demand 
of  himself     While  he  commands  us  to  love,  he  loves  supremely. 

So,  then,  conviction  of  sin  is  a  thing  very  plain  to  be  under- 


408         AIMS  AND  METEOBS  OF  CHBISTIAN  LIFE. 

stood.  It  is  the  conviction  of  a  man  that  he  is  not  a  lover  of  God, 
that  he  is  proud,  that  he  is  self-seeking,  that  he  is  hard,  and  that 
he  is  indifferent,  negligent,  or  even  oppugnant  to  the  welfare  of 
men. 

To-morrow,  when  you  go  into  the  street,  and  meet  people,  test 
yourself  a  little.  See  what  your  feeling  is  toward  them  as  you  meet 
them  man  by  man ;  as  you  see  them  crowding  the  boat  or  the  car. 
Ask  yourself,  "  How  much  have  I  of  that  large  feeling  of  benevo- 
lence which  makes  men  yearn  toward  their  fellow  men  ?  What  is 
there  in  me  which  makes  my  heart  go  out  in  desire  after  those 
around  about  me  ?  Look  at  little  children — those  that  are  ragged 
and  dirty ;  those  that  need  the  most  pity  and  help ;  those  that  are 
the  least  lovely.  Look  at  men  who  have  faults,  among  all  classes 
and  dispositions.  See  if  there  is  in  your  soul  a  breathing  of  benev- 
olence toward  all  who  exist  near  you.  Consciousness  of  defect  in 
this  regard  is  what  I  call  the  best  conviction  of  sin.  I  like  con- 
victions of  sin  which  are  specific,  which  go  down  to  the  practical 
life  of  men,  and  which  are  experienced,  not  in  occasional  moments 
or  hours,  but  during  every  hour  and  every  moment. 

What,  then,  is  conversion  ?  A  great  many  suppose  it  consists 
in  a  purpose  to  serve  God.  Yes,  but  what  is  serving  God  ?  It  is 
becoming  like  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  being  transformed 
into  the  spirit  of  true  love  to  God  and  true  love  to  man.  He  is  not 
converted  that  felt  very  bad  yesterday  and  feels  very  good  to-day. 
A  man  is  not  converted  merely  because  he  can  say,  "  I  once  did 
not  care  anything  about  churcli.  and  did  not  like  the  Bible,  and 
did  not  love  to  pray ;  but  now  I  like  to  read  the  Bible,  and  go  to 
church,  and  pray."  All  that  may  be  true  of  an  unconverted  per- 
son as  well  as  of  a  converted  person. 

When  you  come  to  the  center  of  it,  what  is  conversion  ?  A 
man  has  been  living  a  proud,  selfish,  self-aggrandizing  life,  and 
has  been  indifferent  to  other  men ;  but  he  takes  a  new  view, 
and  says,  "  My  God  is  living  for  others.  Jesus  Christ  gave  himself 
a  ransom  for  many.  I  am  called  to  that  life  which  he  lived.  And, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  and  the  Spirit's  help,  I  will  be  transformed, 
and  will  see  that  all  the  ends  of  my  life,  from  this  day  forth,  are 
benevolent." 

If  a  man  is  changed  so  that  he  says,  "  I  have,  by  God's  help 
sworn  the  irrevocable  oath  ;  I  have  consecrated  myself  to  the  work 
of  benevolence,"  he  is  converted.  By  conversion,  however,  I  do 
not  mean  perfection,  but  enlistment. 

Now  we  come  to  inquire  what  is  meant  by  "  the  conflict  ot 
Christian  life."    It  means  that  struggle  Avhich  takes  place  when  the 


AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CUBISTIAN  LIFE.         409 

attempt  is  made  to  bring  every  part  of  our  nature  into  subjection 
to  this  new  principle  of  life,  and  to  compel  our  whole  mind  to  re- 
ceive the  perfume  of  love,  and  to  breathe  the  spirit  of  love  toAvard 
our  fellow  men.  There  continues  to  be  in  us,  after  we  are  con- 
verted, an  indiffarence  to  men.  But  there  must  not  be  indifference 
to  men.  Indifference  to  men  is  treason.  There  is  the  old  feeling 
of  pride  which  leads  us  to  take  care  of  ourselves  and  demand  atten- 
tion from  others.  That  feeling  must  bow  down  to  love,  and  be 
softened  and  sweetened,  as  it  was  in  the  apostle  Paul.  There  is  in 
us  the  same  desire  for  praise — the  same  tendency  to  vanity.  That 
must  be  baptized  in  love.  All  our  seekings  and  yearnings  and  as- 
pirations must  be  in  this  new  channel. 

If  you  are  very  happy  in  singing  and  praying,  that  is  good,  if 
your  happiness  is  accompanied  by  a  change  which  makes  you  really 
more  benevolent,  more  gentle,  more  kind,  more  sympathetic,  more 
loving,  more  lovable.  A  man  who  is  converted,  and  is  not  more 
lovable,  is  not  thoroughly  converted.  If  after  a  man  is  converted, 
he  is  not  so  agreeable  or  companionable ;  if  he  has  only  strained 
himself  up  so  that  he  does  not  touch  men  ;  .if  he  is  less  sympathetic 
and  Avarm,  then  he  is  mistaken  about  his  being  converted;  or,  it  is 
a  bad  kind  of  conversion  that  he  has  undergone.  lie  that  is  con- 
verted has  gone  out  of  winter  into  summer.  He  that  is  converted 
is  full  of  generous  sympathy.  That  is  the  reason  "why  a  Christian 
man  is  always  social.  The  moment  men  enter  the  Christian  life, 
they  become  social.  You  cannot,  in  this  world,  fill  up  a  religious 
life  without  the  social  principle.  Christianity  is  social  in  its  very 
central  element. 

If,  therefore,  men  wish  to  know  whether  they  are  converted  or 
not,  there  is  the  test.  They  know  as  well  as  anybody  else.  If  they 
are  in  any  doubt,  let  them  ask  those  that  are  around  about  them. 

A  man  has  a  brier  growing  in  his  flower-pot ;  and  not  being 
satisfied  with  it,  he  says,  "I  will  have  this  grafted."  So  he  grafts  it 
with  tlie  Marshal  Neil  rose.  It  takes,  and  he  waits  to  see  how  it 
will  develop.  By  and  by  the  buds  begin  to  appear  and  open, 
and  the  whole  bush  begins  to  glow  ;  and  the  man  says,  "  I  wish  I 
knew  whether  this  .was  really  a  grafted  rose.  I  wish  some  one 
would  tell  me  whether  it  smells  good  or  not."  I  think  if  it  were 
the  Marshal  Neil  rose  you  would  know  it  by  its  fragrance ! 

You  have  had  that  which  was  worse  than  a  brier  in  your  dis- 
position ;  and  if  you  arc  grafted  with  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  that  spirit  is  beginning  to  be  developed  in  you,  you  will 
not  have  to  ask  many  persons,  "  Am  I  blossomed,  and  um  I  sweet 
and  fragrant,  in  gracious. dispositions?" 


410         AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  GHBISTIAN  LIFE. 

A  man  is  proud  and  hard  and  obstinate,  and  wishes  he  knew 
whether  he  is  converted  or  not.  Everybody  else  knows  whether  you 
are  or  not.  If  your  old  granite  disposition  is  as  hard  as  ever,  and  if 
when  people  fall  against  it  they  are  ground  to  powder,  then  you  are 
not  converted.    "  By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them." 

Here  is  a  man  of  the  intensest  avarice.  All  roads  go  to  his 
pocket,  and  none  lead  away  from  it.  He  loves  money,  and  lives  for 
it,  and  will  sacrifice  all  other  interests  for  it;  and  he  wants  to  know 
whether  he  is  converted  or  not.  He  sits  down  and  studies  his  evi- 
dences of  conversion,  and  concludes,  on  the  whole,  that  he  is  con- 
verted. He  really  takes  a  little  more  interest  in  Sunday  than  he 
used  to.  He  enjoyed  the  music  very  much  last  Sunday,  and  he 
never  noticed  it  before.  He  had  not  been  accustomed  to  go  to 
church,  and  being  known  to  be  a  rich  man  he  received  a  great  deal 
of  attention,  and  he  was  put  into  a  good  pew,  and  a  gentleman  spoke 
to  him  in  flattering  terms  after  the  service ;  and  he  felt  quite  happy, 
and  went  home  and  said,  "  Who  knows  but  I  am  converted  ?  Can 
a  man  be  converted  and  not  know  it  ?  Can  he  slip  into  it  una- 
wares when  he  is  asleep  ?  I  wish  I  knew  whether  I  was  converted 
or  not."  The  man  who  makes  a  bargain  with  you  to-mori'ow  will 
know  whether  you  are  converted  or  not.  When  a  man  is  converted 
he  is  converted  into  benevolence.  No  man  was  ever  converted  into 
stinginess.  If  you  remain  hard,  and  selfish,  and  proud,  and  vain ; 
if  there  is  no  battle  set  up  against  your  lower  passions  ;  if  there  is 
no  evidence  of  the  beginnings  of  a  better  life  in  you,  then  you  need 
not  be  in  any  doubt  as  to  whether  you  are  converted  or  not.  I  do 
not  care  if  you  have  a  band  of  angels  singing  to  yon  day  and  night, 
they  are  singing  to  a  fool !  He  that  is  called  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is  called  on  this  charter :  "  If  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  he  is  none  of  his."  No  rapture,  no  vision-seeing,  nothing 
that  does  not  produce  a  sense  of  real  sympathy  for  your  fellow-men, 
and  make  you  feel,  that  their  interests  are  as  dear  to  you  as  youi 
own,  should  be  taken  as  evidence  that  you  are  converted.  If  you 
have  not  love,  you  have  nothing. 

Eead  the  first  few  verses  of  the  I3th  chapter  of  1st  Corinthians, 
and  see  what  the  apostle  says.  Even  if  you -give  your  money  foi 
benevolent  purposes;  even  if  you  become  so  zealous  in  building  up 
some  great  and  good  cause  that  you  would  stand  and  burn  at  the 
stake  in  its  behalf,  if  you  have  not  love,  you  are  as  sounding  brass 
and  a  tinkling  cymbaL  The  center  is  left  out  if  love  is  left  out.  If 
a  man  is  convicted,  he  is  convicted  that  he  is  a  selfish  being, ^and 
void  of  love  to  God  and  men.  And  if  a  man  is  converted,  the  evi- 
dence of  it  is  in  this :  that  he  is  brought  into  a  new  disposition  to- 


AIMS  AND  METUODS  OF  CHRISTIAN  LIFE.         41 1 

■ward  God  and  men — a  disposition  which  requires  no  metaphysics  to 
exphxin,  and  which  is  Avithtn  the  compreliension  of  a  small  child. 
"  Grow  in  grace,  and  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord  and  Savionr 
Jesus  Christ,"    Men  can  test  their  own  evidences. 

In  what  direction  should  you  look  to  see  whether,  on  the  whole, 
you  are  increasing  in  the  Christian  life  ?  There  will  be  many  col- 
lateral evidences.  A  man,  by  studying  God's  word,  may  find  that 
he  gives  the  truth  greater  breadth ;  and  by  the  practice  of  devo- 
tional service  he  may  find  that  he  worships  easier  and  to  more  pur- 
pose. The  evidence  of  growth  is  evidence  of  the  amelioration  of 
the  faculties,  A  growing  Christian,  for  instance,  is  one  who  is  be- 
coming more  kind  and  just  toward  his  fellow-men, 

I  think  that  men's  thoughts  are,  for  the  most  part,  largely  like 
sharks'  mouths  and  teeth.  There  is  nothing  about  which,  as  I  grow 
older,  I  seem  to  feel,  I  think,  more  like  Christ,  than  about  the  in- 
justice of  men  toward  men  in  their  thoughts — in  their  contempt- 
uous feelings  toward  men.  Oh,  how  men  love  to  find  fault  I  How 
they  love  to  pick  at  imperfections !  How  they  love  to  hunt  evil 
things !  How  they  carry  suspicions  in  their  minds  !  How  hastily 
they  judge  !  How  he  seems  bad  that  is  not  helping  them  nor  giv- 
ing them  pleasure,  but  is  hindering  them  and  giving  them  pain! 
How  they  set  up  a  tribunal  before  which  their  neighbors  are  per- 
petually tried  and  condemned !  How  often  do  they  disregard  the 
injunction  of  God,  "Judge  not  thatt  ye  be  not  judged;  for  with 
what  judgment  ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged ;  and  with  what  meas- 
ure ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again" ! 

These  harsh  thoughts  of  men ;  this  carelessness  of  them ;  this 
want  of  respect  to  their  need  and  their  welfare ;  this  prying  out 
of  their  faults  ;  these  conversations  of  men  about  men  and  of  women 
about  women;  this  dolorous  cannibalism  of  the  tabic;  these  per- 
petual insights  into  human  nature  with  a  kind  of  rejoicing  in 
iniquity — all  these  things  mark  a  want  of  summer;  a  Avant  of 
Christ-likeness;  a  want  of  that  spirit  which  led  the  Saviour  to  suf- 
fer for  men,  rather  than  that  men  should  suffer  in  consequence  of 
their  sins  and  transgressions. 

If  you  are  growing  in  grace,  you  will  find  that  the  presiding 
chief-justice  in  your  soul  is  kindliness — kindliness  of  thought  and 
kindliness  of  feeling.  If  you  are  growing  in  grace,  you  will  find 
that  the  very  tones  of  your  voice  will  change  to  kindness.  You 
will  find  that  that  which  was  rough  and  abrupt,  and  which  had  a 
tendency  to  provoke  or  annoy  men,  w'ill  give  way  to  that  wliich  is 
smooth  and  gentle.  If  the  spirit  of  youf  life  is  Christ-like,  if  you 
are  developing  in  Christian  life,  you  are  growing  in  tenderness  and 


412         AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CEBISTIAN  LIFE. 

in  meekness,  and  jou  are  growing  lovely  in  the  sight  of  men.  You 
are  making  yonr  way  brighter.  You  ig-e  making  other  people's  Avay 
brighter.  You  are  making  happiness  for  yourself  and  others 
"wherever  you  go.  If  you  are  not ;  if  you  are  unsocial ;  if  you  arc 
pugnacious;  if  you  are  critical,  fault-finding,  hard,  penurious, 
stingy,  I  do  not  care  what  your  other  experiences  are,  you  are  not 
growing  in  grace.     The  spirit  of  Christ  is  a  spirit  of  love. 

Here,  then,  is  the  beginning  of  Christian  life.  It  is  the  volun- 
tary choice  of  Christ's  example  and  disposition  as  that  upon  which 
you  will  form  your  life  and  your  character.  That  disposition  is 
love,  both  upward  and  outward.  The  beginnings  of  it  are  ceasing 
from  all  evil,  and  commencing  to  live  Christianly  in  this  respect, 
that  you  may  live  benevolently.  Your  conviction  of  sin  will  turn  on 
that  point.  If  your  conviction  be  salutary,  your  sense  of  conversion 
will  be  the  evidence  that  you  really  have  begun  to  live  on  this  prin- 
ciple, and  that  this  is  the  purpose  of  your  life.  Your  Christian 
progress  will  be  marked  by  the  progress  and  the  triumphs  of  a  liv- 
ing disposition  in  you. 

In  the  first  place,  in  closing,  I  appeal  to  you  whether  there  is  not  a 
reality  in  Christianity  as  presented  in  this  way.  I  ask  you  whether,  if 
men  really  did  frame  their  minds  and  dispositions  on  this  basis,  there 
would  beany  room  for  skepticism  on  the  subject  of  Christianity.  We 
have  so  intellectualized  the  great  truths  of  Christianity  that  men  may 
take  either  side,  as  they  do,  aad  argue  on  it.  But  there  is  one  ele- 
ment of  Christian  life  about  which  there  is  absolute  unity  of  belief 
to-day ;  and  that  is  where  a  man  subordinates  all  his  interests  to 
benevolence,  where  he  does  love  God,  and  where  he  does  love  men. 
Where  a  man. acts  in  the  spirit  of  benevolence  or  love,  all  men  agree 
that  he  has  religion.  If  a  man  lives  symmetrically  and  fruitfully, 
according  to  the  law  of  God,  that  is  a  fact  which  no  skepticism  can 
undermine,  and  which  no  skepticism  wants  to  undermine.  You 
may  talk  about  the  inspiration  of  Scripture ;  you  may  talk  about 
whether  there  is  or  is  not  a  Trinity;  you  may  talk  about  Avhether 
there  are  three  persons  or  one  in  the  Godhead;  you  may  discourse 
on  the  nature  of  the  atonement,  and  v/hat  not;  but  there  is  one 
great  question  or  doctrine  which  no  man  debates;  and  that  is,  that 
he  who  is  living  a  consistent  life  of  benevolence  is  a  religious  man. 
Everybody  believes  it.  If  you  could  have  a  church  gathered  in 
which  the  whole  membership,  old  and  young,  really  exemplified  that 
principle,  there  would  be  no  dog  to  wag  his  tongue  against  it;  no 
man  to  find  fault  with  it.  There  can  be  no  heresy  in  love ;  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  or 'dispute  among  men  where  this  large  and 
divine  trait  exists. 


AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CUBISTIAN  LIFE.         413 

Men  say,  "  What  will  become  of  the  church  ?  Is  it  going  to 
stand  the  tests  which  are  brought  to  bear  upon  it  by  discovery?  Are 
■w'e  going  to  hold  our  theories  against  advancing  science  ?"  Let 
science  advance.  If  it  can  show  any  better  type  of  character  than 
is  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament  I  shall  hail  it.  Where  can 
you  find  any  nobler  type?  Where  has  science  disclosed  It  higher 
ideal  than  that  of  God  manifested  in  Jesus  Christ  ?  Can  science 
take  away  from  me  the  conviction  that  the  supremest  conception  of 
manhood  lies  in  the  command,  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
with  all  thy  heart  and  mind  and  strength,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self?" If  that  is  the  heart  of  religion,  how  is  progress  or  change 
going  to  talce  it  away  ?  It  is  not  a  question  of  speculation.  If  that 
is  the  noblest  and  best  element  in  the  universe,  as  it  is,  it  will 
stand. 

If,  then,  we  are  to  labor  for  the  progress  of  divine  principle  in 
this  world,  while  we  are  not  to  be  unmindful  of  doctrines,  and  the 
difference  of  views  in  regard  to  those  doctrines,  every  one  of  us,  in 
his  own  sphere,  can  be  making  the  triumph  of  Christian  truth  more 
and  more  certain.  Every  man  who  rounds  up  his  experience  into 
the  blossoms  and  fragrance  of  Christian  life,  is  laying  a  stone  upon 
the  foundation  which  is  not  be  shaken.  And  every  man  who  is  liv- 
ing in  a  spirit  contrary  to  this,  is  helping  to  build  up  the  other 
kingdom. 

To  live  to  sympathize  with  men  and  care  for  them  is  to  be  on  the 
side  of  God.  To  live  to  use  them,  and  grind  them  up,  and  destroy 
them,  outwardly  or  inwardly,  is  to  be  of  the  party  of  the  devil.  Sel- 
fishness is  Satan.  Satan  is  selfishness.  He  that  wounds,  grieves, 
makes  miserable  his  fellow  men,  is  on  the  side  of  the  devil.  He 
that  seeks  to  build  men  up  and  help  them  is  of  the  party  of  God. 

I  appeal  to  every  person  in  this  congregation,  young  or  old,  is  not 
this  life  of  Christ — that  life  by  which  your  whole  soul  is  transformed 
into  love  to  God  and  men — worthy  of  your  heed  and  of  your  strife  ? 
Do  I  call  you  to  anything  unreasonable  or  less  than  rational  when 
I  appeal  to  you  to  take  sides  with  the  Lord  and  God?  Is  it  not  to 
take  sides  with  yourself?  Self-interest  of  the  higher  kind  dictates 
that  you  should  become  Christian  men. 

I  do  not  ask  you  to  join  this  church,  or  any  church.  Take  what 
church  you  please.  Taking  one  church  or  another  is  very  much 
like  taking.a  carriage  or  a  car,  according  to  your  preference.  Some 
vehicles  run  swifter,  and  some  not  so  swift;  some  are  better  and 
some  are  worse  in  the  matter  of  convenience.  But  that  is  not  the 
question.  The  question  is,  "  Will  you  accept  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
as  the  model  of  your  life?     "Will  you  enter  into  his  life,  that  you 


414         AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CHEISTIAN'  LIFE. 

may  enter  into  sympatliy  with  all  mankind  ?  Will  you  take  his 
cross,  and  crucify  your  selfishness  ?  Will  you  rise  into  newness  of 
life  in  Christ  Jesus  ?" 

That  life  begun  here  is  perpetual.  Love  never  fails.  Knowledge 
shall  perish,  prophecy  shall  cease  to  speak,  all  th^  is  beautiful  shall 
stop  at*the  mouth  of  the  grave,  wealth  and  power  shall  die,  all 
things  bright  shall  grow  dim ;  but  love,  once  begun,  and  having  in 
it  the  touch  of  God's  spirit,  shall  go  on  waxing  brighter  and  shining 
stronger,  and  having  more  and  more  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  it,  till 
at  last  you  shall  be  caught  up ;  and  as  flame  mingles  with  flame 
your  renewed  and  blessed  spirit  shall  be  brought  into  the  brightness 
of  the  Divine  love. 

God  grant  that  you  may  be  born  again,  out  of  selfishness  into 
love  to  God  and  love  to  men. 


AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CEEISTIAN  LIFE.        415 

PRAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  thank  thee,  our  Heavenly  Father,  that  we  are  permitterl  to  come 
again  into  thy  presence.  Thou  hast  heard  our  prayer,  and  blessed  the  day. 
We  thank  thee  for  all  the  joy  of  the  sanctuary.  We  thank  thee  for  the  sanc- 
tifying influence  of  the  Spirit  upon  our  homes.  We  rejoice  in  all  the  mercies 
which  are  scattered  thick  in  our  way.  We  desire  to  be  rendered  more 
worthy  of  thy  favor.  Grant  unto  us,  not  alone  the  thought  of  thee,  and  the 
hope  of  salvation  at  death  by  thy  grace  and  power.  Grant  us,  day  by  day, 
such  union  with  thee,  such  growing  likeness  to  thyself,  that  we  shall  taste 
something  of  the  joy  of  heaven  before  we  are  translated  thither.  We  desire 
strength  from  day  to  day  to  do  the  things  that  are  right.  We  desire  to  have 
our  thought  of  that  which  is  right  made  pure.  Raise  higher  our  thought  of 
things  that  are  noble  and  just  and  good.  May  the  things  which  we  shall 
seek  be  things  for  which  we  shall  be  willing  to  sacrifice  whatever  is  mean 
and  ignoble  and  selfish.  Grant  that  we  may  have  an  earnest  inward  longing 
for  righteousness— that  hunger,  that  thirst,  which  thou  hast  said  shall  be 
filled.  May  we  behold  thee  in  thy  gentleness,  in  thy  meekness,  in  thy  lov- 
ingness.  May  it  be  a  Christ  possessing  these  traits  in  their  perfection  that 
we  shall  seek,  and  receive,  and  follow.  We  pray  that  we  may  take  thee  for 
our  Guide,  so  that  our  pride  and  envy  and  avarice  and  passion  may  be  held 
in  subjection.  May  we  submit  ourselves  to  those  things  which  must  needs 
come  upon  those  who  would  seek  to  overrule  their  evil  propensities.  Grant, 
we  j)ray  thee,  that  we  may  have  such  a  presence  near  us  and  around  us  from 
thee,  that  we  may  fitly  call  ourselves  the  children  of  God,  not  of  an  outward 
pattern,  but  by  reason  of  our  inward  spirit.  May  there  be  a  Christian  spirit 
abounding  in  all  our  lives. 

Are  there  those  in  thy  presence,  far  from  thee,  who  have  been  taught  of 
God  and  of  duty,  and  have  wistfully  looked  upon  the  way  of  religion,  and 
hesitated,  and  not  turned  in  at  the  call  of  God?  O  Lord!  we  pray  for 
them.  We  beseech  thee  to  open  their  understandings  more  clearly.  Wilt 
thou  incite  their  hearts  more  earnestly  to  a  fervent  and  true  life  in  God. 

We  pray  for  those  who  stand  afar  off,  unconcerned.  We  beseech  of  thee 
that  the  truth  of  God  may  enlighten  them.  May  their  thought  become 
nobler  and  better.  May  they  not  propose  to  themselves  the  things  that 
perish  alone.  May  their  life  be  hid  with  thine,  and  may  they  seek  a  nobler 
disclosure  of  their  life  in  Jesus  Christ. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  those  who  are  surrounded  by  tempta- 
tions, and  are  not  so  much  thinking  of  religion  as  of  how  to  maintain  their 
morality,  may  find  thee  a  present  help  in  time  of  need.  Succor  the  tempted. 
Strengthen  the  weak.  Bring  back  the  wandering.  Make  the  way  into 
transgression  hard.  Make  the  way  back  again  easy.  We  pray  that  thou 
wilt  draw  around  about  all  those  who  seek  to  escape  from  sin,  the  sympathy 
and  the  generous  trust  of  those  who  have  themselves  been  rescued  and 
brought  to  a  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Bless  those  in  our  midst  who  are  preaching  Christ.  Bless  parents  who 
are  teaching  their  little  children.  Bless  those  who  are  instructing  the  young 
in  oiir  schools.  Bless  those  eveiywhere  who  go  forth  to  make  known  the 
unsearchable  riches  of  Christ's  love.  We  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  fill 
their  own  souls  with  the  spirit  of  the  Saviour.  And  may  they  rejoice  in  their 
work,  and  not  be  weary  in  well  doing,  knowing  that  in  due  time  they  shall 
reap  if  they  faint  not.  Raise  up  yet  more  laborers.  Behold,  how  large  is  the 
harvest !  How  few  are  those  who  labor  therein !  We  pray  that  Ihou  wilt 
cause  more  and  more  to  consecrate  themselves  to  a  life  of  self-denying 
industry  for  others. 

Wilt  thou  bless  this  city  and  all  its  churches,  and  the  great  city  near  to 


416        AIMS  AND  METHODS  OF  CEEISTIAN  LIFE, 

us  and  its  churclies,  and  all  the  institutions  of  benevolence,  and  all  the 
methods  by  which  men  are  restrained  from  evil  and  incited  to  good. 

Pour  out  thy  Spirit  upon  our  whole  land.  "We  pray  for  revivals  of  reli- 
gion, pure  and  undefiled.  "We  pray  for  justice,  for  truth,  for  conscience,  for 
love.  "We  pray  that  this  whole  land  may  be  lifted,  by  the  power  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  to  a  higher  experience  than  hath  befallen  any  nation  thus  far. 
Then  may  its  light  shine  abroad,  and  may  it  guide  the  wandering  peoples 
that  are  seeking  to  go  from  darkness  to  light. 

Let  thy  kingdom  come  everywhere,  and  thy  will  be  done,  in  all  the 
earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven.  And  may  the  whole  globe  be  filled  with  thy  glory. 
"We  ask  it  in  the  name  of  the  Beloved,  to  whom,  with  the  Father  and  the 
the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore.    Amen. 


PRAYEE  AFTER  THE  SERMOK 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  help  us  to  tmderstand  thy  counsels. 
May  we  realize  that  thou  art  not  far  from  us,  but  near  to  us,  even  within  us. 
May  we  heed  thy  speaking  to  us,  in  our  conscience.  We  pray  that  we  may 
understand  how  simple  is  the  life  of  a  Christian,  and  yet  how  laborious. 
May  we  know  how  few  are  the  things  which  thou  hast  enjoined,  and  yet 
that  they  are  yokes  and  burdens.  Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  we  may  take 
thy  burdens  and  yokes  cheerfully.  May  all  that  in  us  which  is  wild,  wMich 
is  passionate,  and  which  seeks  self-satisfaction,  be  harnessed  and  controlled, 
utterly;  and  may  we  rise  through  self-control  to  liberty.  May  we  learn 
through  loving  that  therein  we  have  our  greatest  strength.  Give  to  us 
aspiration  and  hope,  so  that  all  things  shall  change  in  color  before  our  sight; 
so  that  those  things  which  seem  most  barren  shall  seem  fruitful ;  so  that 
that  which  seems  hard  to  our  feet  shall  seem  easy ;  so  that  our  example  shall 
become  more  and  more  fruitful  of  good  to  men. 

Accept  the  services  of  this  evening.  Accept  our  thanks  for  the  bless- 
ings of  the  day.  We  commit  ourselves  to  thy  care,  dear  Father,  for  the 
hours  of  the  secular  week.  In  our  business,  in  our  goings  to  and  fro,  at  all 
times  and  everywhere,  may  we  have  the  convoy  of  our  God.  And  when  we 
have  gone  through  life  here,  may  we  find  the  gate  there,  and  enter,  to  go  no 
more  out  forever.  And  to  the  Father,  ttie  Son  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  the 
praise.    Amen. 


XXIII. 

The  Spirit  of  God. 


THE  SPIEIT  OF  GOD. 


"The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof, 
Dut  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh,  and  whither  it  goeth ;  so  is  every  one 
that  is  born  of  the  spirit."— John  III.8. 


These  words  refer  to  the  context,  back  in  the  fifth  verse,  where 

the  Saviour  says  to  Nicoclemus, 

"Except  a  man  be  bom  of  water  and  of  the  spirit,  he  cannot  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  God." 

This  famous  conversation  of  our  Saviour  with  this  educated 
Jew,  is  one  of  transcendent  interest  on  many  accounts,  both  because 
it  gives  an  insight,  even  at  so  early  a  period  of  Christ's  career, 
into  the  effect  of  his  ministration  upon  the  intelligent  and  thought- 
ful Jews,  and  because  of  the  topics  themselves  which  are  involved. 

Already,  Nicodemus  was  a  member  of  the  Jewish  Church.  Al- 
ready, whatever  rites  or  services  were  requested  by  that  church  he 
had  performed.  And  he  was,  so  far  as  he  understood  it,  within  the 
spiritual  realm.  It  is  probable  that  he  had  been  a  listener  to  John. 
Possibly  he  may  have  been  among  the  number  of  those  who  re- 
ceived John's  baptism.  It  is  probable  that  formal  baptism  had  been 
introduced  into  the  economy  of  the  Jews  asearly  as  this,  though  that 
is  uncertain.  John's  baptism  was  certainly  familiar  to  him.  And 
we  may  be  sure  that,  in  the  state  of  mind  possessed  by  a  Pharisee,  he 
would  come  to  Christ,  saying,  "  I  am  a  member  of  the  Jewish 
Church."  Pcradventure  he  would  say  to  him,  also,  "I have  been 
baptized  by  John  to  reformation  and  repentance.     What  lack  I 

yet?" 

I  apprehend  that  the  force  of  our  Saviour's  reply  was  not  this  : 
"Except  a  man  be  born  of  water,  and  except  a  man  be  born  of  the 
spirit,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God."  I  do  not  understand 
that  he  put  emphasis  upon  baptism,  as  many  do.  I  take  it  for  grant- 
ed that  he  saw  that  this  was  the  ground  on  which  Nicodemus  stood, 
namely,  that  he  was  initiated,  and  that  whatever  ordinances  or 
administrations  were  required  he  had  observed.     The  Saviour  said, 

SUN-DAV  EvE>aNO,  Doc.  3, 1872.     LESSON :  JoHx  HI.  1-13.     HrMNS  (Plymouth  CoUecUon). 
Nos.  21S,  206,  474. 


420  TEE  SPIBIT  OF  GOD. 

in  effect,  "  Except  a  mau,  baptized  with  water,  be  likewise  baptized 
with  the  Holy  Ghost,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God." 

Christ  brought  into  Yiew,  distinctly,  a  conception  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  which  was  not  unfamiliar  to  the  Jewish  mind,  and  Avhich, 
as  we  shall  see  in  the  sequel,  was  understood  in  a  general  way, 
though  not  specially,  by  Nicodemus  himself. 

I  suppose  that  from  the  beginning  of  time  there  has  been  a  gen- 
eral impression  among  men  that  this  world  was  acted  upon  by 
minds  or  spirits  outside  of  itself:  that,  if  I  may  so  say,  the  waves 
from  other  spiritual  conditions  have  rolled  in  upon  its  shores;  that 
it  is  not  isolated. 

Among  the  modern  discoveries,  there  is  nothing  more  striking 
than  the  fact  that  the  unity  of  creation  does  not  interfere  with  the 
belief  that  there  is  a  spiritual  unity  as  well  as  a  physical  unity ; 
that  in  the  construction  of  the  whole  universe  we  are  but  a  frag- 
mentary part ;  that  there  do  come  in  upon  this  world  influences, 
mental  and  spiritual,  from  outside  of  it ;  that  upon  the  minds  of 
men  there  are  influences  which  spring,  not  simply  from  the  visible 
creation,  but  also  from  invisible  sources.  This  is  certainly  the  doc- 
trine of  the  New  Testament. 

The  inspired  and  authoritative  teaching  of  both  the  Saviour  and 
the  apostles  (though  by  the  apostles  not  so  much  as  by  the  Saviour) 
was,  that  divine  and  demoniac  influences  did  come  in  upon  the 
human  soul  in  this  world ;  and  in  so  far  as  divine  influences  are 
concerned,  such  a  truth  is  to  be  eminently  desired. 

It  is  a  tliankless  task  to  disprove  that  which  is  asserted.  It  is 
the  tendency  of  those  who  are  pursuing  physical  science  to  repel 
anything  Avhich  is  not  able  to  stand  the  test  of  the  senses.  There- 
fore there  is,  on  the  whole,  a  disposition  to  repel  any  doctrine  of 
spiritualism.  It  is  even  treated  with  scorn  by  many,  by  most,  who 
neglect  that  great  inchoate  realm,  that  will  not  down,  and  yet  will 
not  affirm  ;  that  will  not  be  still,  and  yet  will  not  answer.  The 
questions  that  are  put  to-day,  the  vagrant  and  anomalous  spiritual 
theories  of  our  time,  are  simply  despised  by  science  on  grounds 
which  carry  the  feelings  of  the  skeptical  part  of  the  scientific  mind. 

Now,  I  aver  that  there  is  nothing  which  men  so  much  need, 
nothing  which  men  ought  so  much  to  desire  to  be  true,  nothing 
that  men  ought  to  accept  so  willingly,  as  this  doctrine  that  there  is 
wafted  over  into  this  sphere  a  divine  power,  a  spiritual  influence, 
which  wakes  up  the  better  part  of  man's  nature.  It  is  not  to  be  de» 
sired  that  there  should  be  a  demoniac  influence,  though  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  there  is ;  but  certainly  the  transcendent  doctrine  of 
the  New  Testament  is  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  given  to  men  in  this 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  GOJJ.  421 

world,  may  be  given  to  all,  and  is  effectual  upon  veiy  many.  It  fits 
and  harmonizes  with  our  idea  of  the  higher  life  toward  which  we 
are  groping  our  way. 

We  go  forward  in  knowledge  step  by  step.  At  the  very  best  we 
know  but  little.  It  doth  not  appear  what  we  are,  nor  what  we  shall 
be.  We  are  conscious  of  aspirations  and  yearnings  and  longings ; 
but  we  do  not  know  how  to  locate  them,  nor  how  to  proportion 
them.  Some  of  the  most  notable  hours  of  our  experience  are  hours 
in  which  there  is  a  wild  concourse  of  feelings,  formless  and  vague, 
full  of  dissatisfactions.  There  are  glorious  fruitions  which  come  to 
us;  but  they  are  only  for  the  moment;  they  are  transient.  That 
which  every  thoughtful  man  of  any  depth  of  moral  nature  most  de- 
sires, is  that  there  should  be  an  influence,  divinely  directed,  which 
should  teach  us  the  meaning  of  our  own  thoughts  and  feelings,  and 
the  reason  of  our  aspirations,  and  that  should  guide  us  insensibly 
and  rationally  along  that  line  by  which  we  are  to  reach  from  the  ani- 
mal to  the  angelic  or  the  divine. 

This  truth  of  the  divine  influence  exerted  upon  the  heart  of 
man  is  not  to  sufler  doubt  from  the  fact  that  fantastic  and  false  no- 
tions have  prevailed  in  all  ages  and  in  all  religions  on  this  subject 
While  men  are  going  through  periods  of  ignorance,  they  are  super- 
stitious ;  but  as  they  grow  more  and  more  intelligent,  one  by  one 
they  drop  these  notions  of  formless  spirits,  of  vague  invisible  influ- 
ences which  are  supposed  by  the  imagination  of  uncultured  men 
to  fill  the  heaven.  As  men  learn  better  how  to  use  their  minds 
these  notions  are  dropped,  and  they  come  to  more  stable  views. 

This  is  the  reasoning  of  men,  but  I  do  not  understand  how  they 
can  account  for  the  fact  that  the  universal  tendency  of  the  human 
mind  has  been  away  from  the  physical  q-nd  toward  the  spiritual.  It 
is  admitted  that  men  existing  in  their  natural  states  are  but  savage 
and  animal;  that  the  senses  arepre-emiuent;  that  the  passions  take 
precedence  in  power  above  all  other  parts  of  the  human  mind.  We 
know  that  the  earlier  conditions  of  the  human  race  have  been  ani- 
mal. And  tell  me  how  it  is  that  out  of  the  low  and  animal  condi- 
tion which  the  race  has  been  in  has  grown  a  strong  sense  of  in- 
visible and  spiritual  influences  ?  Where  did  it  come  from  ?  The 
race,  before  its  civilization  and  Christianization,  being  animal, 
whence  came  there  into  it  the  conception  of  a  free  spirit  and  of  the 
illumination  of  it  ?  It  is  not  natural  to  a  lower  state  of  the  mind. 
It  is  not  natural  to  the  lower  faculties.  It  is  a  development  of 
the  very  highest  form,  as  we  learn;  and  yet,  it  began  with  the  race. 
It  had  its  beginning  as  far  back  as  we  have  records.  This  faith  in 
the  influence  of  the  Divine  Spirit  upon  the  hearts  of  men  is  one  of 


422  THE  8PIE1T  OF  GOD. 

the  struggling  elements.  And  did  it  not  touch  a  conscious  need  ? 
Was  not  this  universal  feeling  after  some  obscure  truth  the  indica- 
tion that  that  truth  was  working  upon  the  hearts  of  men  ?  Was  not 
the  Divine  Spirit  recovering  from  these  lower  conditions  of  humani- 
ty the  germs  of  things  that  were  to  eventuate  in  intelligence  and 
higher  spirituality  ? 

The  fact  that  men  had  rudely  apprehended  this  truth  does  not 
militate  against  its  reality.  Men  sought  chemistry  through  al- 
chemy, which  was  loaded  down  with  all  manner  of  absurdities  and 
even  superstitions ;  and  yet  they  were  seeking  after  a  verity,  and 
they  found  it  at  last.  Men  sought  astronomy  through  astrology, 
with  all  its  superstitions  and  extravagances,  and  it  is  no  presump- 
tion against  astronomy  that  it  was  preceded  by  such  a  system  of 
misconception  and  distortion.  What  if  the  notions  of  men  in  early 
times  respecting  spiritual  influences  were  crude  ?  What  if  many 
of  them  have  fallen  to  the  ground  ?  What  if  to  a  great  degree 
they  were  fictitious  ?  The  universal  feeling  after  such  a  truth,  the 
universal  belief  in  such  a  truth,  and  the  universal  consciousness  of 
the  need  of  such  a  truth,  are  not  to  be  ignored.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  constitute  a  very  strong  presumption  that  this  truth  is 
real.  The  mere  seeking  of  an  object  does  not,  to  be  sure,  prove 
that  object  to  exist ;  but  when  on  other  grounds  strong  evidence  is 
found  of  the  existence  of  any  truth,  then  the  leaning  of  men  toward 
it  corroborates,  though  it  may  not  prove  it. 

In  this  discourse  of  our  Master,  you  will  obseiTe  that  while  he 

takes  for  granted  this  divine  and  spiritual  influence,  he  declares 

(and  it  is  to  me  one  of  the  evidences  of  divine  wisdom)  that  it  is 

not  possible  for  men  to  understand  such  things;  that  is,  that  the 

truth  of  the  higher  sphere  is  so  unlike  anything  that  we  know  on 

earth,  that  it  cannot  be  made  comprehensible  to  our  faculties  here. 

"  If  I  have  told  you  of  earthly  things,  and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall  ye 
believe  if  I  tell  you  of  heavenly  things  ?  And  no  man  hath  ascended  up  to 
heaven,  but  he  that  came  down  from  heaven,  even  the  Son  of  man,  which  is 
in  heaven." 

It  is  impossible  to  intei'pret  a  higher  sphere  to  a  lower  sphere. 

We  can  have  some  dawning  iutelligenv^e  in  respect  to  the  existence 

and  agency  of  the  Divine  Spirit;  but  a  perfect  comiarehension  of  it 

we  cannot  have.     Hence,  this  great  truth  cannot  be  unfolded  in  its 

detail  and  in  its  philosophy  as  if  it  were  an  earthly  truth.     Nor  can 

all  the  questions  Avhich  may  be  asked  concerning  it  be  answered  ; 

nor  can  all  the  curiosity  which  may  be  excited  with  reference  to  it 

be  satisfied.     But  there  are  certain  points  in  regard  to  the  Divine 

Spirit  which  I  think  Scripture  does  make  plain,  and  experience 

corroborates. 


TnD  SPIBIT  OF  GOD.  423 

We  are  not  to  suppose,  first,  that  it  is  a  supersession  of  the 
faculties  of  man.  It  i&  not  an  attempt  of  the  Divine  Mind  to  put 
its  action  in  the  place  of  our  action.  In  so  far  as  we  can  gather 
from  the  words  of  sacred  Writ,  and  in  so  far  as  we  can  gather  from 
the  conduct  of  men,  where  they  are  expressly  declared  to  be  under 
the  divine  influence,  it  would  seem  as  though  the  Spirit  of  Grodi 
stimulated  development — -%rought  into  it  a  higher  activity.  l' 

Now,  this  giving  to  the  minds  of  men  a  higher  action ;  this 
lifting  them  up  into  a  sphere  of  activity  which  they  have  not 
known  before,  and  so  changing  all  their  feelings  and  experiences, 
is  called  a  "  new-birth,"  where  it  dominates  and  becomes  constant. 
The  activity  of  a  mind  under  the  divine  influence  is  Avhat  is  meant. 
The  Spirit  wakes  up  the  dormant  power  of  the  mind  in  spiritual 
things ;  and,  therefore,  it  is  said :  "  The  Spirit  helpeth  our  infirm- 
ities." All  that  wliich  we  need,  so  far  as  the  senses  are  concerned, 
is  manifested  to  us.  The  eye  has  its  provocations.  The  ear  has  its 
stimulations.  Every  part  is  provided  with  the  forces  by  which  it 
can  be  developed  and  sustained.  Society  ministers  to  the  social 
wants  of  men,  and,  to  a  limited  degree,  it  ministers  to  their  moral 
wants;  but  Avhere  shall  you  find  anything  which  lifts  a  man  above 
and  toward  the  unenibodied — toward  the  invisible — toward  that 
great  realm  of  truth,  in  the  direction  of  which  manhood  develops  ? 
In  every  age  of  the  world  those  have  been  periods  of  growth  in 
whicli  men  have  most  believed  in  the  invisible  and  the  infinite; 
and  those  have  been  shrinking  and  backward-going  periods  in 
which  men  have  been  shut  up,  almost,  to  their  senses. 

There  is  provision  made  for  the  lower  nature  by  the  structure 
of  the  physical  globe,  and  by  the  structure  of  society ;  but  when 
we  rise  to  a  higher  thought  of  manhood,  to  something  that  is  in- 
visible and  infinite,  then  it  is  that  we  need  help.  We  need  some- 
thing that  shall  body  forth  our  conceptions,  and  direct  them. 
That  is  the  work  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  which  reaches  out  to  our 
spirit,  and  quickens  it,  and  enlightens  it,  and  guides  it,  and,more  es- 
pecially, arouses  it.  This  is  called  "  the  kindling  light  in  us."  It 
awakens  the  understanding.  It  stimulates  the  moral  sense.  It 
gives  vitality  and  force  to  all  those  elements  which  go  with  the 
moral  sentiment.  It  is  called,  therefore,  the  "enlightener  of  the 
mind."  It  is  declared  to  be  a  spirit  of  comfort,  of  consolation  and 
of  cheer.  Men  who  have  all  that  their  senses  desire,  and  who  are 
living  for  the  present,  do  not  feel  the  need  of  it,  and  do  not  miss  it 
if  it  be  absent;  but  the  great  mass  of  mankind  are  not  living  in 
circumstances  of  comfort  or  of  attainment.  The  race  of  man,  for 
the  most  part,  are  living  in  conscious  imperfection.     Their  desiras 


t'ty  ' 


424  TEE  SPIEIT  OF  GOD. 

are  being  broken  off  every  day.  Men  are  living  vpith  a  conscious- 
ness of  ill-desert  and  shortcoming  and  guilt,  and  thej  know  not 
how  to  comfort  themselves.  Since  the  world  began,  men  have  been 
turning  every  way,  and  seeking,  by  one  means  or  another,  to  appease 
and  quiet  their  conscience.  It  is  the  ofiQce  of  the  Divine  Sj^irit  to 
comfort  men,  to  console  them,  as  well  as  to  arouse  and  stimulate 
and  enlighten  them.  It  keys  the  soul  ilp  to  its  highest  activity  in 
its  best  parts. 

You  may  ask  me,  "  Is  not  this  the  very  natural  order  of  the 
■^ mind  itself?    Are  you  not  simply  describing  the  functions  of  the 
higher  faculties?     What  need  is  there  of  any  conception  of  things 
over  and  above  that  which  is  inherent  in  the  soul  of  man  ?"    But 
we  are  often  conscious  that  we  are  lifted  up,  not  by  our  own  auto- 
matic activity.     We  are  conscious,  oftentimes,  that  we  are  influ- 
enced by  a  spirit  outside  of  our  own,  mysterious,  acting  not  when 
..   _     we  should  have  expected  it,  according  to  the  conditions  of  our  minds. 
I.  j^t*^t  I         While  it  doubtless  is  true  that  the  activity  of  the  Divhie  Spirit, 
/.  ^^^"^  and  the  methods  of  that  activity,  transcend  our  notions,  yet,  in  one 
sense,  it  is  understandable.     We  can  prepare  ourselves  so  that  we 
/       shall  become  consciously  recipient  of  this  divine  influence.    A  man 
may  prepare  himself  for  friendship,  and  may  prepare  himself  for 
society,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  relations  into  which  he  is 
going.     If  it  be  for  pleasure  that  he  is  to  prepare  himself,  he  throws 
off  care  and  burden, and,  as  it  were,  raises  into  activity  that  part 
of  his  mind  by  which  he  enjoys.    If  it  is  a  company  of  artists  into 
which  he  is  going,  he  prepares  himself  to  be   influenced  by  their 
peculiar  tendencies.    If  he  is  going  among  friends  where  his  social 
faculties  are  to  be  brought  into  play,  he  as  it  were  rouses  up  those 
faculties  in  him  so  that  they  shall  be  in  the  highest  state  of  activity. 
If  he  is  going  where  there  is  to  be  music,  it  is  for  this  that  he  pre- 
y«,^-<j:il^^  pares  himself.     We  are  conscious  that  we  receive  influences  from 
le-fc,*-w-^e  /    each  other  by  preparing  the  mind  to  be  susceptible  to  those  in- 
,  /   '   /       fluences. 

So  it  is  in  the  power  of  a  man  to  prepare  his  soul  to  be  acted 
^  ; '?  :  upon  by  the  Divine  Spirit.  Not  that  he  is  not  acted  upon  at  all 
times;  but  he  may  prepare  himself  so  that  he  shall  be  acted  upon 
the  most  favorably.  There  would  be  summer  if  there  were  not  a 
farmer ;  but  the  farmer  knows  how  to  make  summer  work  to  ad- 
vantage for  him,  as  otherwise  it  would  not  have  done.  There  would 
be  flowers  if  there  were  no  florists ;  but  the  florist  knows  hovf  to 
make  the  sun  bring  forth  exquisite  color  and  forms,  as  it  never 
would  have  done  if  it  had  not  been  for  his  interposition  and  prepa- 
ration. 


TEE  SPIBIT  OF  GOB.  425 

There  would  be  the  universal  influeuce  of  the  Spirit  of  God, 
doubtless,  if  every  humau  being  were  swept  off  from  the  fiice  of 
the  earth.  There  has  been  a  universal  Spirit  of  God  which  has 
brooded  over  the  race  of  man  from  the  beginning,  and  that  has 
been  bringing  out,  little  by  little,  the  nobler  qualities  of  human 
nature  ;  and  this  universal  Divine  Spirit  will  doubtless  be  still  ac- 
tive ;  but  by  meeting  the  Divine  Spirit,  by  preparing  for  it,  by  open- 
ing the  soul  to  its  influence,  and  by  co-operating  with  it,  men  have 
made  themselves  recipient  of  greater  blessings,  a  thousand-fold, 
than  they  would  have  received  from  the  unassisted  divine  influ- 
ence. 

"  Work  out  your  own  salvation  with  fear  and  trembling;  for  it  is  God 
that  worketh  ia  you  to  will  and  to  do  of  his  good  pleasure."  U^  u-^< 

This  co-operative  labor  is  just  as  necessary  in  spiritual  as  in 
material  things.  In  extracting  wealth  from  the  earth,  or  hidden 
treasures  from  the  air,  all  natural  influences  conspiring,  a  man 
specializes  these  influences  by  the  application  of  them  to  the  object 
which  he  has  in  view ;  and  in  securing  spiritual  blessings,  a  man 
specializes  the  generic  influences  of  the  Divine  Mind. 

Not  only  can  we  prepare  ourselves  to  make  the  soul  fructify  un- 
der the  divine  light  and  warmth,  but  we  can  also  resist  these  influ- 
ences. The  divine  influence  is  cogent,  but  it  is  not  irresistible  in 
any  proper  sense  of  the  word.  Where  men  set  their  will  against 
it ;  where  they  put  themselves  under  the  influence  of  feelings  which 
are  antagonistic  to  it ;  where  they  resist  the  tendencies  that  would 
be  developed  if  they  were  to  yield  to  it,  they  certainly  can  set  it  aside. 
I  do  not  say  that,  if  it  pleased  God,  he  might  not  press  his  influence 
irresistibly  upon  men ;  but  experience  shows  that  such  is  not  the 
ordinary  procedure  of  Divine  Providence.  We  are  to  be  made  wil- 
ling in  the  day  of  his  power.  The  strivings  of  God's  Spirit  have 
proved  futile  in  the  thousands  and  thousands  of  mournful  instances 
where  persons  did  not  know  the  day  of  their  welfare.  That  day  "UJ^t 
has  dawned  upon  them  ;  they  have  felt  strange  movements  within  i,  ^ 
them,  and  they  have  set  over  against  them  antagonistic  feelings.  *-^ 
How  many  men  are  roused  up  and  have  yearnings  for  something 
better  than  they  have,  who  do  not  understand  the  influence  that  is 
operating  upon  them,  and  sweep  it  away  Ijy  social  jollity !  How 
many  times  do  they  make  nature  stand  as  a  culprit  before  their 
higher  nature  !  How  often  do  they  feel  discontented  with  things 
which  before  pleased  them  !  How  frequently  do  they  empty  the 
cup  and  find  that  it  n©  longer  has  in  it  any  pleasure  for  them ! 
How  common  it  is  for  men  to  go  over  the  statistics  of  their  past 
experience,  and  find  that  life  has  not  fulfilled  all  that  it  promised! 


426  THE  SPIBIT  OF  GOD. 

Doubtless  these  feelings  are  awakened  by  the  power  of  the  Spirit 
They  are  the  results  of  the  action  of  the  divine  influence  on  the 
.^  soul.    If  I  may  say  so,  they  are  the  waves  of  the  heavenly  life 
beating  on  the  shores  of  this  life. 

Men  set  themselves  at  work  to  put  out  these  unpleasant  feelings, 
or  to  push  them  to  one  side.  They  involve  the  relinquishment  of  states 
which  they  are  not  willing  to  part  with,  or  the  performance  of 
duties  which  they  are  not  willing  to  fulfill.  And  so  they  do  not 
come  into  concord  with  the  soul  of  God. 

I  suppose  every  man  has  been  the  subject  of  divine  importun- 
ity. I  can  scarcely  conceive  of  one  who  has  not  in  some  way  been 
reached  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  Certainly  no  man  who  has  been 
reared  under  Christian  institutions,  who  has  been  surrounded  by 
Christian  friends,  and  who  has  learned  in  the  sanctuary  the  higher 
truths  of  the  Christian  religion,  has  been  left  free  from  the  divine 
influence.  It  may  not  be  recognized  as  such.  I  do  not  suppose  it 
is  recognizable.  I  do  not  suppose  any  man  can  tell  what  is  simply 
the  action  of  his  own  mind,  and  what  is  the  action  of  the  Divine 
Mind,  for  the  reason  that  the  Divine  Mind  stirs  ours  to  act. 

If  you  ask  the  flower,  "  How  can  you  tell  that  which  the  sun 
_>  does  in  you,  and  that  which  you  yourself  do  ?"  the  flower  cannot 
tell.     The  sun  wakes  it  up  to  do  that  which  it  does.     Otherwise  it 
would  not  be  done. 
;uc<^  The  Divine  Spirit  wakes  up  a  man  to  do  that  which  is  higher 

than  the  ordinary  level  of  his  experience  or  endeavor.  And  you 
cannot  discriminate  between  the  man's  own  action  and  the  action 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  manifested  through  him. 

Many  men  sit  in  judgment  upon  pleasure  and  other  outward 
influences  because  they  are  followed  by  the  opposite  qualities — sad- 
ness, etc. — which  are  called  •'*  reactions" ;  but  very  likely  these  are 
just  the  ways  in  which  we  might  suppose  the  divine  influence 
would  come  in  upon  men.  For,  although  hours  of  fullness  and 
power  are  better  for  some  things,  for  other  things  these  reactionary 
hours  are  better. 

There  is  scarcely  a  man  who  has  not  had  hours  of  longing  and 
yearning  for  better  things.  They  may  have  been  vague ;  they  may 
have  taken  on  strange  and  unexpected  and  inexplicable  forms ;  they 
may  have  been  closely  allied  to  secular  elements;  but  even  in  the 
poorest  of  them  there  has  been  a  divine  influence  which  has  been 
working  to  draw  the  man  upward.  Inferiority  never  strives  to  rise 
higher  without  that  toucli  of  divinity  which  makes  the  best  part  of 
a  man  desire  to  enlarge ;  to  go  up ;  to  augment  in  excellence.  And 
there  are  very  few  who  have  not  felt  this  touch.     I  should  be  sorry 


THE  SPIEIT  OF  GOD.  427 

to  think  that  there  were  any  who  had  been  reared  under  Christian, 
influences  who  had  not  many  and  many  a  time  had  yearnings  for 
higher  and  better  things,  and  shed  tears  because  they  had  gained  so 
little. 

Men  begin  the  battle  of  life  with  high  courage.     They  are  heroes 
very  soon.     For  the  most  part  they  mean  to  live  a  life  of  untainted 
honor.      They  mean  to  carry  sentiment  and  enthusiasm  into  all 
their  ways  ;  and  they  do  for  a  time.     But  the  battle  proves  too  hard 
for  them;  and  they  yield  here  and  there.     They  lower  their  tone  in, 
one  direction  and  another.    And  by  and  by,  when  years  begin  to 
touch  their  hair  with  frost,  and  they  look  at  what  they  meant  to  bo 
and  what  they  are,  there  is  a  sadness  that  spreds  over  their  heart. 
There  is  a  great  disparity  between  that  which  they  aimed  at  and 
that  which  they  have  attained.     The  sense  not  only  of  inferiority, 
but  of  sinfulness  and  of  remorse  under  the  inspiration  of  guilt,  fills  r 
many  and  many  a  heart.  Is  there  not  the  striving  of  the  Spirit  with  '^ 
such  a  one  ?     Does  nature  do  these  things  ? 

The  greatest  boon  conceivable  is  the  presence  of  this  quickening 
influence.  The  loss  of  it  is  the  greatest  misfortune  which  is  possi- 
ble to  any  human  being.  It  is  the  life  of  the  soul  in  its  highest 
regions.  It  is  because  these  influences  are  vincible,  it  is  because 
men  are  likely  to  overslaugh  them,  it  is  because  worldly  tides  rise  and 
sweep  out  this  blessed  current  from  the  heavenly  land,  that  we  are 
exhorted  not  to  grieve  the  Spirit  of  God  whereby  we  are  sanctified. 

There  is  no  other  business  in  this  world  that  is  half  so  important 
as  character-building.  He  that  is  building  his  soul  is  building  to 
good  purpose.  He  that  is  only  building  his  property  is  building 
for  the  worm  and  the  dust.  He  that  is  making  the  manhood  in 
him  tower  high,  and  broaden,  and  is  nourishing  it,  is  a  wise  master- 
builder.  He  that  is  heaping  up  outward  things  alone,  is  working 
for  an  hour. 

If  there  come  to  you,  my  friends,  those  influences  which  make 
yoii  hate  evil  as  you  did  not  hate  it  before,  believe  that  they  are 
from  God.  If  you  find  that  there  are  influences  which  inspire  no- 
bler anticipations  of  virtue,  and  a  nobler  ideal  of  heroism  in  life;  if 
there  comes  to  you  a  light  which  makes  living  Christianly  seem 
more  real  and  more  earnest  than  ever  before,  believe  that  this  light 
and  these  influences  come  from  the  battlements  above,  guiding  and 
inspiring  you.  If  there  comes  to  you  at  times  the  consciousness  of 
communion ;  if  that  of  which  at  other  times  you  long  for  even  a  . 
momentary  gleam  comes  to  you  as  an  experience  of  hours  or  days, 
and  it  seems  to  you  as  though  there  was  a  God,  and  as  though  he 
were  very  jiear  to  you,  believe  that  there  is  a  God,  and  that  he  has 


428  THE  SPIRIT  OF  GOD. 

found  you,  and  that  there  i^  moving  upon  your  soul  a  divine  influ- 
ence vrhich  is  not  of  this  world,  but  of  the  heavenly  land. 

Oh,  do  we  not  all  of  us  want,,  more  than  everything  else,  to  be 
better  than  we  are  ?  Do  we  not  all  of  us,  more  than  everything  else, 
want  to  separate  ourselves  from  mere  physical  circumstances  and 
become  men  ?  Is  there  a  man  that  has  the  consciousness  of  char- 
acter and  of  being,  is  there  one  that  respects  himself,  is  there  one 
that  knows  the  worth  that  is  in  him,  who  can  endure  the  thought 
of  sfoing  down  into  the  grave  to  annihilation  ?  Is  there  a  man  who 
can  bear  to  look  into  the  future  and  say,  "  When  forty  years  have 
gone,  what  shall  I  be  ?  Well,  a  prosperous  man.  When  fifty  years 
have  gone,  what  then  ?  A  prosperous  man  still.  Eich.  When 
sixty  years  have  gone,  what  then  ?  Still  prosperous,  still  rich,  and 
respected.  When  seventy  years  have  gone,  what  then  ?  Eiches  no 
longer  enjoyable.  Life  quivering.  The  old  man  looking  out  upon 
that  dark  valley  which  is  not  far  before  him,  says,  '  Who  will 
guide  me  across  ?  Where  is  the  bridge  ?  who  is  the  pilot  ?  where  is 
the  ford  ?' "  When  a  man  looks  out  on  the  valley  and  shadow  of 
death,  is  there  anything  that  he  can  desire  with  his  soul,  and  with 
the  deepest  feelings  of  his  soul,  more  than  a  light  to  shine  upon  the 
road  which  leads  him  to  the  heavenly  land  ? 

It  is  the  blessed  function  of  the  Divine  Spirit  to  give  inspiration 
in  life;  to  give  light  along  the  path  of  duty;  to  create  yearning  in 
men ;  to  lead  them  up  to  the  new  life  of  the  love  of  God  in  the  soul; 
and  then  to  point  out  the  way  in  which  the  spirit  is  to  tread,  and 
to  point  upward  where  the  spirit  is  to  dwell  with  the  spirits  of  just 
men  made  pei'fect,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  throne  of  God. 

I  know  there  are  many  in  my  hearing  who  have  often  been  called 
by  the  Spirit  away  from  evil  and  toward  good.  Many  of  you  have 
heeded  the  call ;  you  have  accepted  the  divine  influences ;  you  have 
been  recreated;  you  have  been  put  upon  higiier  ground;  songs  of 
rejoicing  have  been  put  in  your  mouth  where  once  were  Avords  of 
sorrow ;  your  faith  is  fixed,  and  you  are  living  in  a  heavenly  mood, 
in  expectation  of  the  heavenly  land.  There  are  others  who  have 
been  again  and  again  striven  with  by  this  divine  influence.  This 
quickening  Spirit,  the  soul's  Schoolmaster  and  Guide,  has  been  near 
you,  and  you  have  refused  utterly  to  give  heed  to  it.  You  have 
turned  back  from  it  again  and  again.  It  has  impressed  you  often 
and  often,  and  as  often  pleasure  or  business  has  turned  you  away 
from  the  sacred  drawing.  And  to-night,  while  I  speak,  there  are 
some  hearts  that  palpitate. 

The  Spirit  works  chiefly  through  the  channel  of  revealed  truth, 
through  God's  Word;  and  if  there  be  those  who  listen  to-night  with 


TJJE  SFIIilT  OF  GOD.  429 

tender  heart,  with  a  longing  conscience,  with  an  earnest  desiie  for 
a  better  life,  let  them  take  heed.  Again  to  them  comes  the  offer  of 
God's  forgiveness,  recreation,  guidance,  love,  victory,  and  eternal 
salvation. 


PEAYER  BEFORE  THE  SERMON. 

We  rejoice,  our  Father,  that  we  have  found  our  way  unto  thee,  not  by 
the  seeing  of  the  eye,  nor  by  the  hearing  of  the  ear,  nor  by  the  reaching  out 
of  the  hand,  but  by  thiae  influence  shed  abroad  upon  our  hearts.  We  have 
been  made  to  know  thee,  whom  to  know  aright  is  life  eternal.  We  thank 
thee  for  the  commiuiication  of  thy  Spirit.  We  thank  thee  for  its  cleansing 
influence,  its  enlightening  power,  its  comforting  effect.  We  thank  thee  that 
thou  art  indeed  the  light  of  the  world,  so  that  those  who  sit  in  darkness  may 
see  a  great  light  arising  vipon  them.  We  rejoice,  O  Lord,  that  thou  dost  not 
withhold  the  measures  of  thy  grace.  Thou  dost  pour  forth  from  thine  own 
being,  upon  all  thy  creatures,  the  energy  of  thine  own  nature,  and  thou 
givest  them  life  from  out  of  thine  own  life,  and  they  are  conserved  by  thy 
thought  and  power  and  care.  We  rejoice  that  there  is  no  such  care  as 
thine.  If  we  could  see  behind  the  mystery  of  providence,  if  we  could  see  the 
ends  as  well  as  the  beginnings,  if  we  could  see  the  processes,  we  should  know 
that  all  things  are  working  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  thee.  We 
know  that  all  things  in  this  life  are  working  for  good  to  those  who  love  thee. 
To  be  stayed  upon  thy  love  is  itself  sufficient,  in  the  midst  of  trouble,  to 
lighten  burdens,  and  lift  upon  the  heart  the  cheer  of  hope.  We  rejoice  that 
there  are  so  many  who  are  witnesses  of  the  power  of  God,  not  only  to  for- 
give sin,  but  to  sanctify  that  providence  which  comes  from  forgiveness  of  sin 
and  from  reconciliation  with  God  through  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  We  rejoice 
that  there  are  so  many  who  have  been  made  patient  by  their  faith  in  thee ; 
80  many  who  have  been  made  enduring;  so  many  who  have  been  made 
strong ;  so  many  who  have  been  made  faithful.  And  we  beseech  of  thee  that 
thou  wilt  increiise  the  number  of  those  who  shall  follow  after  thee,  being 
called  •f  thee,  and  shall  possess  thy  spirit.  We  pray  that  the  truth  spoken 
in  this  place  from  day  to  day  may  be  blessed  of  God  to  the  awakening  of 
men,  and  to  their  conversion,  and  to  their  edilication  in  the  Christian  life. 
May  those  of  thy  servants  who  carry  the  Gospel  to  those  around  about  them 
call  men  by  their  speech,  and  more  by  their  influence;  and  to  this  end  may 
thy  Spirit  dwell  with  them.  May  there  be  such  light  and  warmth  and  cheer 
in  ever}'  one  who  is  named  of  thee  as  shall  make  men  draw  near  to  him,  and 
to  the  Saviour,  by  whom  they  are  called,  and  by  whom  they  are  re- 
deemed. 

If  any  that  are  here  are  loolcing  wistfully  tov^'ard  the  Christian  life,  not 
knowing  its  meaning,  nor  how  to  compass  it,  Lord,  wilt  thou  guide  their 
unsteady  step.  If  there  are  those  who  are  uncertain  and  wavering,  upon 
whom  doubts  rest  as  the  darkness  of  the  night,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  re- 
move all  the  questionings  which  envelop  them,  and  give  them  the  clear 
light  of  experience.  If  there  are  those  who  have  backslidden,  and  who 
remem])er  the  times  of  light  and  joy,  and  fain  would  return,  Lord,  draw 


430  TEE  SPIRIT  OF  GOD. 

them  to  thee.  And  draw  others,  by  them,  to  thee.  We  pray  for  those  who 
long  since  ceased  to  pray.  We  pray  for  those  for  whom  parents,  now  gone, 
once  prayed — the  children  of  faith  and  of  consecration.  If  there  be  those  who 
have  for  a  long  time  forgotten  their  fathers'  God,  may  that  time  at  last  cease, 
and  may  they  return  to  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  their  souls. 

We  pray  for  all  manners  and  conditions  of  men — for  those  within  and 
those  without;  for  those  who  listen  to  the  word  of  truth  and  those  who  are 
scattered  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd.  May  the  Gospel  be  sent  out,  and 
everywhere  may  it  accomplish  its  work.  We  pray  that  thy  kingdom  in 
which  dwelleth  righteousness  may  come  more  and  more,  and  the  earth  be 
filled  with  thy  glory.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son  and  the  Spirit  shall  be 
praises  evermore.    Araen. 


PEAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMOK 

Our  Father,  we  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  that  the  light  of  truth  may 
shine  upon  every  heart.  Thou  that  dost  release  the  day  from  the  night,  and 
that  drivest  the  darkness  quite  away,  canst  thou  not,  by  thine  infinite 
power,  bring  light  to  the  souls  that  are  in  darkness.  Are  not  these  thy 
children,  borne  by  thee  through  the  realms  of  time?  Are  they  specks  that 
are  meant  to  perish  ?  Hast  thou  not  stamped  every  soul  with  immortal  life  ? 
Draw  every  soul  toward  thee,  O  thou  great  Center  of  love,  and  wisdom,  and 
goodness,  and  joy;  and  grant  that  every  one  may  be  sensitive,  and  may 
recognize  the  day  of  privilege — the  opportunity  which  is  brought  near  to 
him  by  the  striving  of  thy  Spirit. 

We  pray,  O  Lord,  that  thou  wilt  comfort  those  who  are  not  comf oi-ted. 
Confirm  those  who  are  beginning  the  Christian  life.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt 
cause  those  who  have  walked  therein  to  let  their  light  shine,  and  let  their 
joys  be  borne  to  those  around  about  them.  And  so  may  thy  kingdom  come 
in  many  hearts,  and  thy  will  be  done  therein,  as  in  heaven. 

We  ask  it  through  Christ,  the  Beloved,  to  whom,  with  the  Father  and 
the  Spirit,  shall  be  praises  evermore.    Amen, 


XXIV. 

Spiritual  Hunger. 


INVOCATION. 

stoop  down,  O  Lord,  from  out  of  thy  silence — from  thy  hiding-place. 
Make  manifest  thyself  unto  us  this  morning.  By  thy  thoughts,  search  ours. 
By  thy  heart,  arouse  ours.  Grant  that  we  may  worship  thee  this  day  in  the 
beauty  of  holiness.  May  there  spring  up  in  us  ail  those  yearnings  which 
betoken  thy  presence.  Arise  upon  us  with  healing  in  thy  beams.  Wilt  thou 
direct  the  service  of  the  sanctuary,  that  it  may  honor  thee  in  our  profit. 
May  the  instruction  be  as  of  God.  May  our  fellowship  be  the  fellowship  of 
those  who  are  heirs  of  the  same  immortality.  Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  in 
our  songs  we  may  praise  thee.  Lead  us  in  the  way  of  prayer,  and  bless  us  in 
every  service.    We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 

21. 


SPIRITUAL  HUNGER. 


"  Blessed  are  they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they 
fihtiil  be  tilled."— Matt.  V.  6. 


Hunger  and  thirst  indicate  ihe  want  of  the  body,  the  sup- 
port of  life  from  day  to  day,  in  the  building  up  of  every  part 
of  the  system.  In  the  creation  of  man,  it  was  not  safe  to  leave 
this  to  his  intelligent  inspection,  and  to  his  judgment.  There- 
fore the  safety-valve  was  infixed  in  the  body  itself;  and,  as  it 
were,  the  alarm-bell  rings  when  the  body  needs  either  food 
or  liquid.  Hunger  is  the  sign  that  the  material  body  is  wasted, 
and  that  more  is  Avanted  to  build  it  again.  Thirst  is  the  sign 
that  the  fluids  of  the  body  are  drained  away,  and  that  more 
are  needed  to  take  their  place.  Although  hunger,  under  cer-, 
tain  circumstances,  may  become  a  pain,  rising  in  intensity  to  a 
certain  extent,  according  to  the  urgency  of  the  demand,  or  acting 
unhealthily  in  the  abnormal  conditions  of  the  body,  yet,  in  its 
normal  state  it  is  not  disagreeable.  It  is  a  kind  of  semi-pleasant  ex- 
perience. It  begins  in  a  very  remote  suggestion.  It  quickens  the 
impulses.  It  is  only  when  it  is  denied,  and  denied  for  long  periods, 
that  it  becomes  j)ainful.  It  is  not  itself  discriminating.  Hunger 
never  says  to  us,  "  The  bones  need  lime."  It  never  says,  "  This  or 
that  organ  needs  building  up."  It  is  simply  a  sensation ;  and  yet 
by  experience  and  imagination  it  becomes  something  very  different 
from  a  mere  sensation.  It  has  the  power  of  exciting  in  the  mind 
memories,  pictures,  ideals.  One  sleeps,  and  there  is  a  vague,  wan- 
dering feeling  of  hunger  in  the  system ;  and  from  that  dreams  be- 
gin to  rise ;  and  they  are  dreams  of  banquets,  dreams  of  fountains 
in  the  wilderness,  dreams  of  luscious  fruit,  almost — not  quite — v/itL- 
iu  reach.  Sometimes  they  are  dreams  of  actual  eating  and  drink- 
ing— insijiid  drinking  and  tasteless  eating ;  for  we  have  memory  of 
things,  but  not  of  sensations. 

That  which  is  true  of  dreams,  is  equally  true  of  life.  The  im- 
agination, coming  with  this  blind  sensation,  creates  before  the  mind 
all  manner  of  attractive  pictures;  so  that  when  men  hunger,  it  is 

SUXDAT  MORNINO,  Fcb.  11, 1811.  LESSON  :  MATT.  V.    HT5INS  (Plymouth  Collection).  No*. 
VSi,  005,  907.  ^ 


( 


434  SPIRITUAL  EUNGJSB. 

not  so  much  hunger  that  they  are  thinking  of,  as  it  is  that  supply 
which  the  sense  of  hunger  in  imagination  creates  before  the  mind. 
In  all  persons,  directly  or  remotely,  it  inspires  life.  It  is  true  that 
many  of  us  are  so  far  lifted  up,  and  the  conditions  of  our  life  have 
become  so  complex  and  organized,  that  we  never  study  immediately 
for  the  supply  of  hunger.  But  if  you  look  at  human  life  in  the 
origin,  and  if  you  look  at  the  progress  of  the  human  race,  I  think 
it  Avill  be  seen  that  hunger  has  been  among  the  earliest  of  the  stim- 
ulants which  have  developed  industry.  And,  although  now  it  is 
low;  although. its  position  relatively  is  very  humble  a& a  motive 
force,  it  has  acted,  and  it  has  had  no  unimportant  sphere  of  action, 
in  the  life  of  the  world. 

In  the  savage  state  hunger  is  still,  probably,  the  pi-ime  law  of 
life.  Indolent,  torpid  almost,  when  gorged,  savages  become  active, 
for  the  most  part,  only  when  hunger  stimulates  them.  The  lowest 
condition  of  humanity  is  indicated  by  that  state  in  which  men  act 
so  long  as  hunger  is  on  them,  and  cease  to  act  or  lay  up  provision  for 
the  time  to  come  the  moment  hunger  ceases. 

Now,  the  same  law  prevails  in  the  mind.  That  is  to  say,  out- 
ward activity  grows  from  some  sort  of  inward  uneasiuess  or  impulse. 
Hunger  existing  in  the  body  works  outwardly,  first,  into  that  in- 
dustry Avhicli  supplies  it,  and  then  enlarges  gradually,  and  inspires 
a  more  complex  industry.  And  so  almost  all  of  life  in  its  upper 
sphere  proceeds  from  a  kind  of  hunger  which  exists  in  the  soul. 
Some  yearning,  or  longing,  or  action,  or  some  faculty  developing 
itself  and  working  to  produce  its  appropriate  gratification — this  is 
the  analogue ;  and  the  character,  as  formed  by  the  faculties,  answers 
to  the  industrial  creations  produced  by  sensations  of  hunger  and 
thirst  in  the  body. 

The  inward  hunger  may  be  a  hunger  for  simple  activity.  Crea- 
tures of  all  kinds  have  a  sort  of  muscular  buoyancy  or  physical  ac- 
tivity inspired  by  their  physical  systems.  There  Avould  be  no  ac- 
cumulation of  property,  no  continuity  of  exertion,  if  there  w^jre  not 
an  appetite  for  property  in  the  mind.  It  is  hunger  for  possession 
that  raises  the  ideals  of  it,  and  stimulates  the  pursuit  of  it.  No 
man  would  shape  his  life  assiduously  to  make  it  comely  in  the  sight 
of  other  men,  if  it  were  not  that  there  is  a  hunger  of  praise  lying 
deep  in  him  and  perpetually  inciting  him  to  win  praise,  by  putting 
forth  exertions  which  shall  make  him  seem  j)raiseworthy  to  others. 

The  combativeness  of  men  springs  from  a  dispositional  irrita- 
tion ;  from  a  tendency  to  continunl  contest,  by  the  outward  mani- 
festations of  self-esteem  or  pride.  It  comes  from  an  appetite  which 
inh^'cs  in  the  original  constitution. 

/ 


SFIBITUAL  EVNGEB.  "  435 

The  yearnings  of  men  for  society,  and  for  all  its  enjoyments  and 
developments,  likewise  proceed  from  some  inward  preparation  for  it. 

This  is  the  law,  then,  which  we  recognize  familiarly  in  society 
with  regard  to  all  the  lower  forms  of  mental  activity.  The  hunger 
of  the  body  produces  prosperity  ;  and  the  hunger  of  the  understand- 
ing, of  the  active  disposition,  and  of  the  lower  forms  of  emotion, 
stirs  men  up  to  create  in  society  those  conditions  which  shall  satis- 
fy the  cravings  of  the  iuAvard  want. 

This  is  the  law  of  moral  and  spiritual  life,  just  as  much  as  of 
physical  and  intellectual  life.  There  is  not  one  law  for  a  spiritual 
fetate,  and  another  for  an  emotive  and  social  and  dispositional  state. 
The  law  is  the  same  throughout.  The  law  for  moral  excellence, 
whether  generic  or  specific,  lies  at  the  root  of  all  true  sjjiritual 
growth. 

The  text,  therefore,  strikes  at  a  creative  and  organic  truth. 
"  Blessed  are  tliey  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness."  In 
that  word  "righteousness"  is  included  the  heart-excellence  of  men. 
The  lowest  conditions  of  human  life  are  those  in  which  men  live 
for  mere  physical  sensations.  The  highest  are  those  in  which  men 
live  for  moral  excellence.  And  all  the  way  between  are  gradations 
partaking,  more  or  less,  of  one  extreme  or  the  other — gradations  in 
which  men  seek  to  better  their  conditions,  their  circumstances,  their 
reputations,  and  to  a  certain  extent  their  characters,  as  distin- 
guished from  their  reputations. 

So  that  men  are  acting  in  life  all  the  way  through  on  the  de- 
grees of  a  long  scale  ;  and  they  are  acting  upon  the  principle  of  an 
inward  longing  as  the  cause  of  outward  endeavor,  fulfilling,  in 
some  partial  way,  the  promise  that  they  shall  be  satisfied. 

It  is,  then,  the  ideal  which  determines  men's  real  moral  position. 
It  is  the  ideal  which  is  created  by  the  co-operation  of  some  inward 
organic  want  with  the  imagination.  It  is  the  ideal  which  springs 
up  partly  from  experience,  and  partly  from  the  imagination.  And 
it  is  the  use  which  men  make  of  their  ideals  that  will  gauge  and 
characterize  their  whole  lives.  ) 

Let  us  analyze  and  study  it  rather  'Inore  particularly.  Men 
without  an  ideal,  or  without  an  impulse  toward  something  higher  / 
and  better  than  they  have  in  the  present,  must  be  regarded  as  be- 
longing to  the  lowest  class.  Aspiration,  by  Avhich  m'^n  tend  to 
grow  in  right  directions,  is  one  of  the  characteristic  features  of 
real,  vital,  true  manhood. 

There  are  a  great  many  in  the  human  ftimily  who  are  by  birth 
so  weak,  so  feeble,  so  ill-endowed,  that  they  seem  to  be  almost 
pulseless  in  the  matter  of  aspiration.     Creepers  they  are.     Having 


( 


436  SPIBITUAL  HUNGEB. 

no  power  to  fly,  they  creep ;  and  they  creep  without  the  thought 
of  wings,  apparently.  There  seems  to  be  a  great  nnder-class  who 
are  to  be  borne  with,  to  be  pitied,  and  sometimes  to  be  blamed, 
thoiT^h  not  in  any  such  measure  as  that  in  which  we  blame  or 
dinary  faults.  They  provoke  us  too  frequently,  because  we  do  not 
take  into  consideration  the  inherent  weakness  of  their  whole 
nature. 

But  there  are  those  who  are  living  in  a  state  in  which  they  have 
no  tendency  to  grow  or  aspire,  by  a  voluntary  addiction  to  vulgar 
tastes  and  pleasures.  They  think  either  along  the  level  of  their 
original  position,  or  upon  a  declining  plane.  There  seems  to  be 
aroused  in  them  as  yet  no  ideal  of  anything  that  is  better  than  that 
which  the  senses  can  bring  to  them,  or  can  enjoy  when  it  is 
brought.  These  are  bad  men.  Not  that  there  may  not  be  in  them 
transient  gleams  of  things  good;  but  the  average  tendency  of  such 
men  is  animal.  They  infest  society.  They  are  constantly  liable 
to  be  made  enemies  of  society.  Their  whole  status  will  be  deter- 
mined, not  so  much  by  their  own  inward  voluntary  condition  as 
by  outward  circumstances.  They  may  be  merely  complying  with 
what  they  think  to  be  necessary  to  their  welfare.  They  may  be 
kept,  by  the  fear  of  the  law,  by  the  surrounding  public  sentiment, 
and  by  various  .other  influences,  within  bounds,  so  that  they  do  not 
break  over  into  vices  and  crimes.  They  are,  however,  the  stuff 
out  of  which  criminals  and  vicious  men  are  made.  They  have 
tendencies  which  have  caused  many  strong  men  to  break  down, 
and  go  into  places  where  wickedness  resorts,  and  crime  is  esteemed. 

One  can  hardly  think  of  such  men  and  not  be  discouraged,  un- 
less he  thinks  of  God,  too.  One  hardly  knows  what  to  do  with 
this  great  under-class — especially  when  he  takes  statistics,  and 
runs  out  along  the  line  of  life  into  other  nations  and  other  times, 
and  sees  how  large  a  section  of  the  human  family  have  lived  very 
near  to  this  condition  ;  and  how  great  a  number  of  them  came  into 
it  by  the  force  of  organic,  hereditary  influences;  and  came  into  it, 
also,  under  circumstances  which  afforded  them  very  little  external 
help.  To  be  sure,  there  is  a  glimmer  of  light  thrown  on  such  men, 
where  the  apostle  says,  that  those  who  are  under  the  law  shall  be 
judged  by  it,  and  that  those  who  are  without  the  law,  or  outside 
of  any  illumination,  shall  be  judged  without  the  law,  having  the 
law  written  in  their  hearts;  that  is,  all  men  shall  be  judged  accord- 
ing to  what  they  have,  and  not  according  to  what  they  have  not ; 
and  the  judgment  shall  be  very  lenient  upon  infelicitous  disposi- 
tions, and  dispositions  left  with  so  little  culture.  But  even  the 
lowest  form  of  judgment,  under  such  circumstances,  becomes  op- 


SPIBITUAL  nUNGEB.  437 

prcssive  to  the  imagination  and  to  the  thought.  Where  shall  it 
stop  ?  Where  shall  it  he  executed  ?  What  is  the  character  of  that 
realm  which  has  such  a  criminal  population  in  excess,  and  with  so 
little  institutional  or  other  force  to  redeem  it?  What  shall  we  do 
with  the  truths  that  glitter  on  the  very  top  of  the  Gospel — the 
truth  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  ?  What  shall  we  do  with  the 
thought  of  God  in  the  Gospel,  which  is  interjpreted  to  us  by  that 
very  experience  \o  which  the  whole  soul  of  man  is  brought  ?  Tak- 
ing those  inspirations  that  we  derive  from  the  revelations  which 
are  made  to  us  in  Scripture,  and  then  taking  our  experiences,  what 
shall  Ave  infer  ?  I  do  not  undertake  to  say  what  the  inferences 
shall  be.  I  say  simply  this — that  there  is  a  reason  for  sadness  and 
for  profound  melancholy  in  the  contemplation  of  the  facts  of 
human  life,  which  exists  nowhere  else. 

But  where  men  are  born  with  potency ;  where  they  are  not 
dragged  down  by  the  deficiencies  of  their  nature;  where  they  go 
voluntarily  into  that  state  in  which  hunger  and  thirst  are  phy- 
sical, and  in  which  their  soul  has  no  hunger  nor  thirst — under 
such  circumstances  we  find  less  difficulty  in  fashioning  judgments. 

Above  this  lower  form  of  human  life,  m  which  men's  ideals  are 
mostly  physical,  we  come  to  the  development  of  society-life,  where 
men's  ideas  are  largely  those  of  business;  where  they  are  much 
higher  and  more  wholesome;  and  where,  if  they  be  conjoined  to 
certain  others,  they  incline  to  the  production  of  virtuous  states.  I 
suppose  that  if  we  were  to  examine  the  lives  of  great  multitudes 
who  are  well-to-do  and  respectable,  it  would  be  found  that  their 
more  active  ideas  were  centered  on  objects  outside  of  themselves. 
They  go  out  into  life  to  build  up  their  households.  Of  the  good 
and  deserving  who  are  seeking  property,  very  few  are  seeking  to 
build  up  themselves  interiorly,  except  so  far  as  they  do  it  in 
building  up  their  complex  selves — their  wives  and  children  and 
friends,  and  others  who  are  around  about  them.  They  are  striving 
to  amass  a  fortune  for  other  than  selfish  reasons.  Their  business 
zeal  has  a  higher  element  in  it  than  the  simple  desire  of  acquisition. 
It  has-  the  touch  of  social  virtue  in  it. 

But  still,  a  man  who  lives  to  better  his  condition,  to  better  his 
property,  to  build  his  house  better,  to  furnish  it  better,  to  surround 
himself  with  material  for  refined  enjoyment,  and  to  plant  himself  in 
the  midst  of  social  influences  that  shall  minister  to  present  happi- 
ness— although  such  a  man  is  not  ignoble,  his  nobleness  is  not  of 
the  highest  type.     It  is  of  the  earth,  and  earthy. 

Hidier  than  this  are  the  social  ideals.  If  voii  examine  them  for  a 
moment,  you  sliall  find,  first,  the  romantic.     If  you  regard  tlie  ro- 


438  SPIBITUAL  EUNGEB. 

mautic  as  that  which  is  unreal  and  impossible,  your  view  is  cen- 
surable, or  may  be  criticised.  For  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
romance  signifies  a  nobler  conception ;  and  that  is  to  be  encouraged. 
It  is  a  generous  symptom  where  the  young  propose  to  themselves  a 
way  of  life  which  is  transcendently  higher  than  that  which  prevails 
around  about  them.  A  young  man  who  comes  into  life  without 
any  thought  of  a  nobler  life  than  is  required  by  the  average  virtue 
around  him,  can  scarcely  flatter  himself  that  her  has  a  trait  of 
nobility  in  him.  It  is  a  wrong  thing  to  dash  the  hopes  of  the  young, 
and  say  to  them,  "  It  is  all  romance.  When  you  have  gone  as  fiir 
in  life  as  I  have,  you  will  lay  aside  all  these  visions,  and  confine 
yourself  to  matters  of  fact.  The  world  is  showing  itself  to  you  in 
delusive  colors."  They  will  find  that  out  fast  enough.  Ill-omened 
prophet,  leave  them  to  discover  that  their  ideals  are  unfounded  if 
they  must.  Their  struggle  will  be  to  reduce  their  ideals  of  man- 
hood to  practical  results.  Do  nothing  to  lead  them  to  lay  aside  a 
truly  heroic  conception  of  life.  Woe  be  to  that  man  who  has  laid 
aside  his  ideals.  Woe.be  to  that  man  who  has  quenched  the  light 
which  was  shining  afar  to  beckon  and  cheer  him  on,  toward  which 
he  was  directing  his  steps,  and  for  the  sake  of  attaining  Avhich  he 

^   was  making  the  vulgar  and  the  common  serve  nobler  uses  ! 

(  There  are  also  the  sentimental  ideals  of  social  life,  or  those  in 

which  the  afiections  are  accustomed  to  draw  the  picture.  These, 
too,  are  very  ennobling,  if  one  has  fiiith  in  his  ideals.  Before  the 
battle  we  all  think,  "  How  brave  we  shall  be !"  Many  a  young  sol- 
dier, on  all  the  march,  has  been  stimulating  himself  with  the 
thought  of  his  heroism ;  but  when  the  conflict  rages,  his  courage 
falters.  It  is  when  men  are  under  fire  that  they  slink  down  and 
begin  to  feel  the  vulgarity  of  their  nature  overcoming  their  hero- 
ism. So  long  as  life  is  all  smooth  with  men,  it  is  not  difficult  for 
them  to  maintain  their  sentimental  thought  and  spiritual  inspira- 
tions. It  is  only  when  they  have  to  contend  with  facts ;  when  they 
have  to  deal  with  things  that  are  disagreeable  ;  when  they  have  to 
bear  things  which  lead  to  suffering — it  is  only  then  that  they  find 
it  hard  to  keep  up  their  heroism.  It  is  when  sentiment  becomes  a 
thing  which  must  be  cultivated  by  moral  endeavor,  that  men  fail. 
The  experience  of  many  persons  who  in  girlhood  and  boyhood  are 
full  of  the  choicest  aspirations,  hungering  and  thirsting  after  higher 
things,  is,  alas!  in  later  life,  like  a  house  the  morning  after  an  il- 
lumination and  a  feast.  Every  pane  of  glasff  had  its  candle  ;  but 
long  before  midnight  every  candle  has  burned  into  its  socket,  and 
run  down  into  darkness;  and  in  the  moniing  there  is  but  the  un- 
turned tallow  and  the  remnant  of  wick.     Thousands  there  be  whc 


SFIBITUAL  HUN  GEE.  439 

look  out  triumphing  over  the  glory  of  their  home,  thinking  whufc 
ft  life  shall  be  kindled  up  by  the  heavenly  luster  of  their  affection  ; 
but  when  they  tread  the  way  of  life,  and  selfishness,  and  envy,  and 
jealousy,  and  disappointment,  and  poverty,  and  afflictive  sorrow, 
blight  their  affection,  and  they  feel  the  yoke  and  the  burden,  and 
cry  out  day  and  night,  "  Who  shall  deliver  me  from  the  body  of 
this  death  ?"  then  how  they  change  their  social  ideals ! 

Ah  I  the  histories  which  are  written  are  all  artificial  histories. 
Those  histories  which  Aveigh  with  God  are  down  so  deep  in  the 
secret  recesses  of  souls  that  no  writing  can  bring  them  up.  And  I 
may  say  that  the  heroisms  of  life  for  the  most  part  never  flash  out. 
[  The  ideals  of  spiritual  excellence,  as  I  have  said,  develop  accord- 
ing to  the  same  line.  But  they  are  latest.  They  have,  apparentl^^, 
less  force  in  this  world.  They  are  most  dependent  upon  influences. 
They  seem  to  be  from  above.  As  one's  outward  life  follows 
certain  tendencies  which,  combining  with  imagination,  produce 
ideals ;  so  one  is  to  have  his  moral  and  religious  life  following  cer- 
tain ideals,  which  have  sprung  from  certain  inward  hungerings  and 
thirstings  of  the  soul.  There  is  to  be  a  longing  for  purity  in  the 
inward  man ;  a  longing  for  truth,  ardent  and  unquenched ;  a 
longing  for  all  that  is  godlike ;  for  perfect  manhood ;  for  that 
vigor  and  valor  which  Avork  with  the  gentleness,  the  sweetness, 
the  meekness  and  the  humility  which  inhere  in  true  love ; 
for  wealth  of  character;  for  all  that  goes  to  make  the  angelic 
conceptions  of  men ;  a  longing  for  symmetry  and  harmony 
and  intensity  and  continuity  in  the  inward  life ;  above  all,  the 
outreachiug  of  the  soul,  along  the  line  of  its  ideals,  for  what 
I  may  call  the  unreal  or  imaginary ;  for  those  after-states  and 
after-companionships  which  hang  hovering  over  life  to  many 
of  us.  As  to  summer  the  clouds  that  are  in  the  heaven  shape 
themselves  into  cities,  into  castles,  with  battlements  and  gorgeous 
thrones,  and  yet  are  but  clouds;  so  over  the  imagination  hang 
these  pictures  cf  the  glory,  and  grandeur,  and  purity,  and  joy  oi 
the  other  state  ;  and  the  heart  hungers  and  thirsts  for  them.  And 
the  declaration  is,  "Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness ;  for  they  shall  be  filled."  They  will  not  be  entirely 
satisfied.  Our  hunger  does  not  die  because  we  ate  this  morning. 
It  comes  again  this  noou.  And  the  supply  of  yesterday  is  not  the 
supply  of  to-day.  And  in  regard  to  spiritual  elements  the  general 
law  is  that  those  who  hunger  and  thirst  for  things  pure  and  noble, 
and  put  forth  the  same  exertion  to  obtain  them  which  we  do  to 
obtain  temporal  things,  shall  day  by  day  find  a  supply.  "They 
shall  be  filled."    Not,  however,  so  that  they  shall  be  conscious  of 


440  SPIRITUAL  EUNGEE. 

carrying  about  with  them  an  experience  like  a  diamond,  never- 
changing.  The  soul  will  still  go  on  yearning  to  be  supplied.  It 
will  still  hunger  to  be  fed.  It  will  still  go  on  through  periods  of 
oscillation,  with  variations  of  experience.  But  the  general  fact  will 
remain,  that  those  who  have  such  sensibility  in  their  moral  nature 
that  they  hunger  for  things  higher  than  social  life,  higher  than  civil 
life,  higher  than  physical  attainments,  who  hunger  for  moral  excel- 
lence— for  God  and  for  the  heavenly  land — have  worked  out  in 
them  by  that  very  hunger,  its  supply.  It  is  an  incitement  to  medi- 
tation, to  faith,  to  prayer,  and  to  noble  actions  out  of  which  come 
both  instruction  and  fruit.  They  shall  be  supplied  even  here;  and 
more  gloriously  shall  they  be  filled  hereafter,  when  the  present  shall 
pass  away,  and  they  shall  see  God  as  he  is,  and  shall  be  like  him, 
and  shall  be  satisfied. 

In  view  of  this  exposition,  I  remark,  first,  that  there  are  a  great 
many  who  live  under  the  influence  of  mixed  and  irregular  ideals. 
There  are  a  great  many  whose  aspiration  is  .very  transient.  There 
is  just  enough  of  it  to  rebuke  their  way  of  living. 

Have  you  never  traveled,  of  a  summer's  night,  belated,  after 
darkness  had  fallen,  and  the  storm  had  made  the  blackness  more 
intense  ?  Your  road  is  hidden  from  you.  Every  now  and  then 
there  comes  flaming  througli  the  air  the  illumination  of  the  light- 
ning ;  and  for  an  instant  you  see  the  mountain,  the  hill,  the  valley, 
the  road,  everything ;  but  after  the  flash,  deeper  darkness  settles 
down  upon  you.  By  and  by  the  flash  comes  again,  and  then  again 
the  darkness  shuts  you  in. 

The  ideals  of  others  are  intermittent  and  partial.  They  are 
easily  excited  and  easily  guided.  There  are  whole  days  in  which 
the  souls  of  men  seem  to  soar  above  the  bewilderments  of  life. 
There  are  even  weeks  of  harmony  in  some  men's  experience,  I 
know  not  why  it  is  that  there  should  go  on  fermentations  within, 
and  that  another  side  of  the  soul  should  seem  to  come  into  ascen- 
dency. We  know  how  it  is  with  morbid  appetites  for  intoxicating 
drinks.  I  have  seen  men  who  have  lived  for  weeks,  and  even 
for  months,  without  these  stimulants,  but  who,  by  and  by,  they 
knew  not  whence  nor  why  nor  how,  came  into  a  state  in  which 
they  could  not  resist  the  impulse  to  indulge  in  them  again.  Their 
nervous  organism  seemed  to  run  in  periods ;  and  the  time  would 
come  around  when  their  power  of  abstinence  would  give  way — as 
when  the  clock  has  brought  the  pointer  round  you  hear  the  click, 
and  the  machinery  lets  go  the  ratchet.  There  is  a  distemperature 
going  on  in  the  soul,  such  that,  if  it  cannot  be  overruled  and  gov- 
erned, the  good  n  solutions  that  have  been  formed,  and  the  oppo- 


SPIEITUAL  HUNGEB.  441 

sition  that  has  been  set  up  will  be  swept  away  as  by  a  flood.  And 
that  which  we  discern  iu  this  form  of  disease,  is  discernible  to  a 
certain  extent  through  the  action  of  the  whole  system  in  life.  We 
run  through  periods.  If  we  have  gone  for  weeks  and  weeks  in 
spiritual  directions,  it  would  seem  almost  as  though  backsliding 
was  necessary.  As  the  activity  of  the  whole  day  culminates  in 
sleep,  and  out  of  night  we  gather  strength  again  ;  so  it  would  seem 
as  though  our  spiritual  nature  slept  at  times  that  it  might  gather 
strength.  Because  to-day  we  were  lifted  up  on  the  wings  of  an- 
gels, as  it  were,  we  seek  the  same  condition  to-morrow;  but  we  find 
it  not.  To-day  our  Avhole  way  of  life  seems  fair  and  easy ;  and  on 
either  side  of  our  path  are  fragrant  blossoms  and  luscious  fruit; 
and  yet,  before  the  week  rolls  round  we  are  shut  up,  and  harassed 
by  a  blind  dread,  and  discontented.  To-day  there  is  a  wondrous 
overflow  of  sympathetic  love  in  our  feelings,  and  all  mankind  are 
dear  to  us,  and  we  are  inspired  to  pray  for  men,  and  to  live  for 
them,  and  our  Christian  life  seems  a  glorious  reality,  and  w^e  won- 
der that  men  should  ever  doubt  religion,  or  think  that  there  is 
nothing  in  it;  and  yet  tliere  comes  upon  this  experience  a  distem- 
perature  which  eclipses  the  fair  orb  that  shone  so  brightly ;  and  we 
find  that  we  are  nuzzling  with  the  vulgar  doubters  and  unbelievers, 
and  are  scarcely  able  to  cry,  and  much  less  able  to  instruct.  Where 
is  our  hope  ?     Where  is  our  faith  ?     How  helpless  are  we ! 

This  intermittency  is  more  clearly  distinguishable  in  intensely 
organized  natures;  but  it  prevails  more  or  less  in  all.  There  are 
very  few  who  can  carry  their  ideals  all  the  time.  Our  ideals  are  ^ 
sometimes  like  a  candle.  While  we  leave  it  in  the  house,  it  burns 
with  a  straight  wick  and  flame;  but  the  moment  that  we  attempt 
to  carry  it  out  of  doors,  the  wind  blows  the  wick  and  the  flame 
about,  and  the  candle  becomes  almost  useless;  we  are  obliged 
to  hide  it  in  a  lantern  if  we  would  derive  any  benefit  from  it  in 
the  open  air. 

How  few  men  who  have  a  noble  ideal  of  interest  in  their  fellow 
men  that  are  struggling  around  about,  and  of  sympathy  for 
them,  can  go  through  a  single  day  and  keep  that  ideal  I  We  take 
our  ideal  out  with  us  in  the  morning  as  soldiers  when  they  are  going 
into  battle  take  their  resplendent  uniforms;  and  at  night  it  is  like 
those  same  uniforms  when  the  soldiers  have  come  back  from  the 
battle,  rolled  in  the  mud  and  grimed,  or  burnt  with  jiowder.  How 
far  we  are  from  the  realization  of  our  ideals  of  purity  and  good- 
ness, although  we  constantly  have  the  stimulations  of  truth  in  the 
church,  and  amoiig  Christians,  and  are  lifted  up  to  a  higher  level ! 
What  noble  influences  and  inspirations  surround  our  path  from 


44'^  8PIBITUAL  EVNGEB, 

day  to  day ;  and  yet  what  a  crooked  course  is  that  which  we  take ! 
And  how  apt  we  are  to  become  discouraged,  and  to  say,  "  Why, 
these  are  all  imaginations.  There  is  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  to 
be  about  as  honest  as  we  can,  and  behave  about  as  well  as  we  can, 
God  is  too  good  to  punish  us  very  severely  for  those  infirmities 
which  the  flesh  is  heir  to!"  That  is  not  the  question.  The  ques- 
tion is  one  which  comes  nearer  to  our  own  manhood  than  that. 
Can  you  afieord  to  destroy  your  manhood  by  lowering  your  ideals  ? 
Let  God  be  true,  though  every  man  be  a  liar.  It  is  better  for  you 
to  condemn  yourself  through  and  through,  and  stick  to  your  ideal, 
than  to  lower  your  ideal  to  gain  some  quiet  and  self-complacency. 
It  is  not  pleasant  for  a  man  to  be  filled  with  the  throbs  of  self- 
reproach,  to  feel  the  measurement  of  the  golden  reed  of  God's 
sanctuary;  it  is  not  pleasant  for  a  man  to  see  how  poor  his  life  is 
here  when  laid  on  the  back-ground  of  the  other  life  as  the  imagina- 
tion presents  it  to  us ;  nevertheless,  it  is  better  that  we  should  at- 
ternj)t  to  lift  up  our  ideals,  and  make  them  more  stringent  than 
they  can  be  if  we  seek  relief  by  humbling  and  vulgarizing  them. 
He  who,  though  thorns  are  bound  upon  his  brow,  though  his 
hands  be  pierced  with  nails,  though  he  be  slain,  still  maintains  his 
ardent  faith  in  things  the  noblest,  and  the  best,  and  the  highest, 
and  the  purest,  and  the  truest,  and  does  it  in  spite  of  himself,  and 
though  it  keeps  him  in  a  purgatory  of  self-condemnation,  is  a  real 
man  ;  and  he  who  brings  himself  out  of  purgatory,  and  into  a  con- 
dition of  self-complacency,  and  contentment  with  himself,  because 
he  requires  so  little  of  himself,  is  a  vulgarized  man. 

Human  life,  I  think,  has  as  many  discontents  and  frets  from  an 
unwise  use  of  subtle  ideas  as  from  any  qnartei'.  In  this  land, 
where  we  have  such  abundance  around  us,  where  opportunities  open 
to  every  one,  and  where  social  life  is  keyed  so  high,  Ave  are  not,  I 
think,  in  the  main  a  happy  people.  I  do  not  know  that  the  house- 
hold is  as  happy  as  it  was  some  hundred  years  ago,  when  men  lived 
nearer  the  rock  and  the  flint  than  they  do  now.  I  see  on  every  side 
men  who  are  rendering  themselves  discontented  with  what  they 
have,  by  a  kind  of  subtle,  undertone  ideal  of  what  they  wish  they 
had.  If  one  has  enough  of  raiment  for  the  purposes  of  the  body, 
he  is  not  thankful,  because  he  has  a  vision  of  superfine  raiment,  not 
jis  something  for  which  he  will  patiently  Avait  or  work,  but  as 
something  which  others  have  and  he  has  not.  And  so  he  grumbles. 
If  the  table  is  spread  frugally,  but  Avith  sufficient  plain  food  for  the 
body's  Avants,  it  is  not  a  grateful  meal  that  he  makes ;  for  he  im- 
agines a  more  bounteous  table,  such  as  others  bavc,  but  he  has  not. 
And  so  he  grumj^les  agam.      Men  and  Avomen  are  thinking,  in  the 


SPIRITUAL  EUNGEE.  443 

household,  every  day,  aud  every  hour  of  the  day,  not  so  much  of 
what  they  have,  as  of  what  they  have  uot.  They  are  sitting  in 
judgment  on  their  mercies  by  the  thought  of  other  better  things 
which  they  might  have  had;  and,  instead  of  using  this  ideal  con- 
ception of  better  things  as  a  spur  to  urge  them  on  "to  higher 
industry  and  attainment,  they  use  it  as  a  whip  of  scorpions  to 
minister  discontent  to  themselves  all  the  time,  by  comparing 
somebody  else's  life  with  the  life  which  they  are  actually  passing. 
Aud  so  they  have  what  is  called  a  fictitious  experience. 

There  are  not  so  many  joys  in  the  world  that  we  need  turn  our 
joys  to  sorrow.  We  need  not  turn  our  sweet  to  bitter.  We  need 
not  live  on  so  low  a  plane,  and  measure  our  life  by  such  a  low  stand- 
ard, as  to  waste  our  happiness  by  a  crumbling  discontent.  We  need 
not  be  made  nliserable  by  holding  up  before  ourselves  the  vision  of  a 
better  future.  If  we  believe  in  such  a  future,  let  us  by  patience 
wait  for  it  until  it  is  developed  in  us.  Meantime,  let  every  man  be 
content,  every  hour,  and  be  thankful  for  the  mercies  of  that  hour, 
whatever  his  circumstances  may  be. 

We  must,  in  order  to  make  this  ideal  other  than  a  scourge  and 
torment,  join  to  it  more  than  human  strength.  To  those  secret 
ideals  which  range  over  the  outward  life,  and  the  inward  life,  and 
the  life  which  is  to  come,  there  must  be  joined,  it  seems  to  me,  a 
childlike  faith  in  Christ,  and  a  child-like  faith  in  the  great  compen- 
sations of  the  future,  or  else  we  shall  have,  not  happiness,  but  pining, 
discontent,  self-condemnation  and  fear.  We  are  never  to  be  made 
happy  by  the  reality  of  what  we  are.  I  lay  it  down  as  a  universal 
canon,  that  no  form  of  true,  rich,  noble,  spiritual  enjoyment  can 
ever  be  founded  on  the  consciousness  of  contentment.  "  By  the 
grace  of  God  we  are  what  we  are."  We  are  beggars,  and  are  clothed 
by  him.  We  are  blind,  and  we  see  only  through  his  vision.  We 
are  what  we  are  by  the  sustaining,  restraining  and  inspiring  power 
of  him  who  loved  us.  We  are,  however,  after  all,  absolutely  con- 
sidered, most  imperfect,  rude,  in  the  best  things.  As  judged  by  the 
eye  of  God  we  are  full  of  gaps.  There  are  long  rests  where  there 
should  be  only  breaks.  We  are  full  of  concussions  and  causes  of 
misery.  And  our  joy  is  to  spring  largely  from  the  thought  that 
we  arc  beloved  by  God,  that  he  is  preparing  us  for  the  beauty  of 
the  perfected  state,  thaC  he  is  waiting  patiently  for  us  as  we  are  for 
our  children.  It  is  not  the  perfection  of  our  children  that  leads  us 
to  love  them.  It  is  the  necessity  of  our  nature  to  love  them.  And 
lor  twice  a  score  of  years  we  wait  for  them  to  come  up  to  their  full 
.  beauty  and  strength.  God  waits  for  us.  He  loves  us.  And  his  love 
for  us  is  not  on  account  of  what  we  are,  but  on  account  of  what  ho 


444  8FIBITUAL  HUNGER. 

is  himself.  It  is  the  necessity  of  God  to  love.  He  would  not  bo 
God  if  he  did  not  love.  He  waits  for  us,  and  it  is  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  this  fact  that  we  are  to  find  our  rest  and  satisfaction. 

Do  you  not  suppose  that  your  best  friend  knows  what  your 
weaknesses  are  ?  And  do  you  not  suppose  that  he  is  delighted  to  see 
you  filling  your  hours  with  music,  and  glad  of  all  that  which  tends 
to  make  you  strong  and  wise  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  friendship  is 
blind  ?  No  eye  sees  so  keenly.  The  acutest  ear  is  that  of  the  best 
musician.  Kowhere  is  discord  so  jarring  as  to  the  soul  that  has 
the  most  relish  for  concords.  Parents  see  their  children's  faults, 
and  cover  them  down.  And  does  not  friendship  wait  upon 
friendship  ?  Do  we  not  lift  each  other  up,  and  carry  each  other 
forward  toward  the  ideals  which  beckon  us  on  ?  And  do  we  not 
rejoice  in  the  present  indications  of  that  which  is  to'  be  ? 

Man  in  this  world  is  only  something  like  a  chart — not  the 
thing  itself.  He  is  but  a  kind  of  map — not  the  country,  the 
hills,  the  valleys,  and  the  water.  He  is  merely  a  symbol  of  those 
things.  We  are  a  hint  of  what  we  are  to  be.  And  we  love  each 
other  continually,  notwithstanding  our  imperfections  and  undevel- 
oped condition.  That  is  not  friendship  which  has  this  world  for  a 
background.  That  only  is  friendship  which  has  immortahty  be- 
hind it.  We  love  and  joy  in  those  to  whom  we  are  true  friends. 
And  does  not  God  do  the  same  thing  ?  Do  we  not  do  it  because  we 
are  taught  of  God  ?  And  is  not  this  about  the  secret  of  that  rest 
which  we  have  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ? 

We  are  pictures  unpainted.  We  are  statues  unshaped.  God 
is  working  out  in  us  his  own  ideal.  He  is  forming  us  accord- 
ing to  his  own  good  pleasure.  And  it  is  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  love  of  God ;  it  is  in  our  faith  in  the  Divine  purity ; 
it  is  in  our  belief  in  the  reality  of  the  divine  inspiration,  that 
we  find  peace,  We  cannot  find  peace  in  ourselves.  We  need 
to  live  under  the  influence  of  the  other  life.  We  must  live  by  our 
higher  conceptions,  or  by  our  imagination  quickened  by  an  inward 
hunger.  We  must  ever  more  keep  before  us  the  fruitions  of  the  ra- 
diant future.  We  must  take  refuge  in  the  lesson  of  the  Saviour.  It 
is  the  grace  of  God  which  saves  us — that  grace  which  has  its  root 
and  center  in  love.  In  the  consciousness  of  God's  love  our  imper- 
fections are  swallowed  up  and  lost. 

I  care  not  for  the  rude  leaves  which  break  the  ground  in  early 
spring,  and  which  have  verj  little  form,  and  no  comeliness ;  for  ev- 
ery one  of  these  basilar,  seminal  leaves  is  a  prophecy  of  that  Avhich 
is  to  come  forth  wheja  the  warm  summer  has  nourished  the  plant 
and  taught  it  how  to  blossom,  or  how  to   bring  forth  fruit.     The 


SPIBITUAL  HUNGER.  445 

crude  and  imperfect  blossoms  and  fruit  which  we  see  here  are  but 
hints  of  what  they  shall  be  by  and  by  under  a  diviner  sky  and  in  a 
diviner  presence. 

"We  must  have  faith  in  the  thought  of  God,  and  the  love  of  God, 
and  rest  in  these ;  and  though  every  day  we  are  conscious  of  being 
far  from  the  perfection  which  God  requires,  and  which  our  own 
ideals  require,  and  though  we  are  filled  with  self-reproaches  and 
self-condemnations  ;  yet  supereminent  above  all  other  feelings  should 
be  the  sense  that  we  are  children  of  God,  and  that  we  are  rising  to- 
ward the  joy  of  perfected  manhood  and  of  spirituality  in  the  heav- 
enly land. 


PEAYER  BEFORE  THE   SERMON. 

We  rejoice,  our  Father,  that  thy  providenoe  is  above  us  all.  In  this 
great  world  we  wander  not  forlorn,  because  thou  hast  cared  for  us,  and  dost 
multiply  the  comforts  of  life  from  day  to  day  on  every  side.  And  yet,  with 
outward  bread  we  are  not  satisfied.  Nor  is  it  enough  that  our  bodies  are 
clothed.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  dwell  together  in  an  earthly  friendship 
and  peace.  There  lies  beyond  an  unapproached  shore.  Though  there  be 
signals  from  thence,  we  know  not  what  they  mean  and  can  discern  but  im- 
perfectly. We  see  as  through  a  glass  darkly.  We  believe  that  thou  art 
there,  and  that  there  are  gathered  together  the  pure  and  the  just,  and  that 
in  a  jiobler  commonwealth  life  goes  on  without  the  disfigurements  of 
this  experiment.  With  outspread  wings  we  forever  fly,  joyfully,  in  that 
land,  who  are  here  but  callow  and  unable  to  go.  We  believe  that  there  thou 
art  thyself  the  teacher,  and  that  we  shall  be  in  such  conditions  that  we  can 
approach  unto  thee,  and  no  longer  discern  thee  through  symbols  and  imag- 
inations—no longer  see  thee  under  human  forms  and  imitations.  We  shall 
see  thee  as  thou  art.    We  shall  be  like  thee.    We  shall  be  satisfied. 

How  imperfect  is  the  way  that  leads  to  thee!  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is 
the  beginning  of  wisdom ;  and  the  love  of  God  is  the  end  of  wisdom.  And 
yet  how  we  shall  minister  them ;  how  they  shall  lead  us ;  how,  in  all  the 
infinite  applications  of  daily  life  we  shall  hold  ourselves  in  a  tnie  fear  and 
iu  a  true  love — this  has  been  our  trouble,  our  anxiety,  and  our  failure. 

We  need  thee  to  show  us  what  we  are,  and  to  give  us  some  thought  of 
that  shape  which  we  ought  to  wear,  and  of  how  we  may  rise  by  our  inward 
nature  and  prepare  it  for  the  heritage  of  the  blest.  We  have  groped  at 
mid-day.  Wc  have  sought  thee,  and  no  voice  has  answered  to  our  outcry. 
Yet,  we  believe  that  wo  are  livmg  and  moving  under  the  cope  of  thy  kind 
thought  and  thy  providence,  and  that  all  things  are  working  together  for 
good  to  them  that  love  thee. 

Grant  that  we  may  have  this  charter  and  title,  that  we  love  God.  May 
we  know  it  by  the  love  which  is  reflected  from  us  upon  each  other.  May 
we  know  it  by  the  whole  disposition  of  our  souls.  And  in  the  certitude  of 
thy  divine  love,  may  we  rise,  at  last,  believing  that  what  is  tinknown  now 


446  SPIEJTUAL  EUNGEB. 

shall  be  revealed ;  that  what  is  unreached  shall  he  attained ;  and  that  what 
is  yet  undeveloped  and  crude  shall  ripen  into  blessed  fruitions  of  the  heav- 
enly land. 

Draw  near,  this  morning,  to  all  that  are  waiting  before  thee,  and  help 
them  according  to  their  several  needs.  Grant  that  those  who  are  troubled 
in  heart,  and  mind,  and  state,  may  find  consolation,  this  morning,  in  waiting 
before  God.  May  they  be  able  to  cast  their  care  upon  thee.  Why  should  we 
bear  our  burdens  when  there  is  infinite  strength  to  bear  them  for  us?  Why 
should  we  in  anxiety  wait,  and  look,  and  long,  when  thy  wisdom  has  rtm 
before  ours,  and  appointed  our  paths,  and  is  guiding  us  in  them?  May  we 
know  how  to  trust  in  God— yet  not  with  such  a  trust  as  shall  lead  us  to  slug- 
gishness. May  we  '•ojoice,  rather,  to  work  out  our  own  salvation  with  fear 
and  trembling,  since  it  is  God  working  in  us  to  will  and  to  do  cf  his  good 
pleasm'e. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  those  in  thy  presence,  this  morning,  who  have 
come  up  hither  from  places  of  sorrow,  and  who  wear  the  garments  of  mourn- 
ing, may  find  that  they  have  come  indeed  to  the  friendship  of  the  living 
Qod — the  Comforter;  and  may  they  find  the  distemperature  of  their  grief 
healed.  May  they  know  how  to  behold  thee  in  thine  afiiictive  providence 
as  still  full  of  encouragement  and  of  love,  and  of  the  tenderest  sympathy, 
for  them.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  to  those  who  have  been  bereaved, 
and  who  look  back  upon  the  sorrow,  and  upon  the  brightness  of  the  past, 
through  the  dimness  and  gloom  of  present  suffering,  the  light  of  thy 
countenance  and  the  joy  of  thy  spirit. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  to  those  who  are  burdened  with  cares,  and  who 
have  difficulties  in  life,  and  who  find  every  day  and  every  hour,  as  it  were 
hewn  among  stones,  hard,  ascending  lines— grant  to  them  that  as  their  day 
is  they  may  have  strength  also.  May  they  feel  themselves  refreshed  every 
day  by  thee.  May  they  have  that  bread  which  cometh  down  from  heaven 
and  whose  strength  is  indeed  immortal. 

We  pray  for  those  who  bear  the  care  of  others  upon  their  hearts.  We 
pray  for  parents  in  behalf  of  their  children,  and  for  friends  in  behalf  of  their 
friends. 

Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  this  divine  solicitude  one  for  another,  not  only 
may  nourish,  but  may  minister  gladness.  May  it  be  filled  with  hope  and  with 
cheer.  May  there  be  wisdom  granted  to  all  those  who  stand  for  others  to  do 
the  things  that  are  best. 

We  pray  for  thy  blessiog  to  rest  upon  those  who  are  advancing  into  life, 
and  who  have  an  inexperienced  way  before  them.  May  the  young  grow  up  in 
truth  and  honor,  and  have  stability  therein.  May  they  have  that  knowledge 
from  thee  which  shall  guide  them  unerringly. 

We  pray,  O  God,  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  those 
who  stand  in  the  midst  of  life,  and  are  trying  to  carry  out  the  truth  as  it  is,  in 
human  affairs.  May  they  have  wisdom  given  them  by  which  they  shall  be 
able  to  bear  into  the  midst  of  human  life  healing  influences.  May  themselves 
not  be  beaten  down  and  made  decrepit  by  the  assaults  that  are  heaped  upon 
their  faith.  May  they  by  their  faith  be  able  to  carry  men  with  more  hope 
and  light  through  difficult  ways. 

We  pray  for  those  who  are  teaching  in  our  Sabbath-schools  and  our 
Bible-classes.  We  pray  that  they  themselves  may  be  taught  of  God,  and 
filled  with  the  divine  Spirit.  May  their  hearts  be  evermore  warmed,  as  by 
the  summer,  with  sympathy  for  their  fellow  men;  and  may  they  go  forth  to 
labor  with  meekness  and  patience  and  fidelity. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless  this  church  in  all  its  interests.  May  its 
members,  whether  gathered  together  here  or  scattered  abroad,  still  be  under 
thy  paternal  care ;  and  may  they  join  in  sympathy  with  us  to-day  who  ire 


SPIRITUAL  EVNGEB.  447 

far  from  us  bodily.  And  aa  they  think  of  the  songs  of  Zion,  as  mey  remem- 
ber praises  and  prayers  and  joys  here,  may  they  partake  again,  somewhat, 
in  their  solitude,  of  these  various  divine  refuges  of  the  heart. 

We  pray,  O  God,  that  thou  wilt  bless  our  whole  land.  Be  pleased  to 
remember  the  President  of  these  United  States,  and  those  who  are  associated 
with  him  in  authority.  Grant  that  they  may  be  indued  with  wisdom,  and 
that  they  may  be  able  to  lead  this  nation,  being  themselves  led  by  the  hand 
of  God. 

We  pray  for  the  governments  and  the  legislatures  of  the  States,  and  for 
those  who  execute  laws,  and  for  all  the  institutions  of  learning,  and  for  all 
those  who  are  teaching  in  them,  and  in  schools  everywhere,  and  for  the 
whole  people,  that  they  may  grow  in  knowledge  and  in  grace,  and  that 
this  nation  may  be  redeemed  from  evil,  and  purified,  and  become  a  nation 
zealous  of  good  works. 

Bless  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Unite  them  more  and  more  by  sympa- 
thy. May  repulsions  and  animosities  and  hatreds  die  away.  May  the  day 
of  darkness  pass  quickly.  Bring  in  that  light  which  is  to  be  the  cheer  and  the 
salvation  of  the  whole  world.  Let  him  that  is  the  Light  shine  forth.  May 
all  the  nations  flock  to  the  banner  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  may  no  other  banner 
be  lifted  up ;  and  may  no  other  weapons  but  those  which  are  welded  by  the 
baud  of  love,  be  cast.  May  wars  cease,  with  all  their  desolations  and  evil 
works ;  and  may  the  whole  world  be  filled  with  thy  glory. 

We  ask  it  for  Christ's  sake.    Amen. 


PRAYEE  AFTEK  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  beseech  of  thee  that  thou  wilt  grant  tmto  us  more 
clearly  to  see  the  way  from  ourselves  imto  thee ;  more  clearly  to  see  the  rela- 
tions between  thy  great  soul  and  ours ;  more  perfectly  to  believe  in  that 
stream  of  divine  beneficence  which  is  the  source  of  our  life,  and  which 
causes  our  life  from  day  to  day  to  break  out  into  things  right  and  good. 
Grant  that  we  may  not  shut  our  eyes  to  right  and  duty.  Grant  that  we  may 
not,  in  our  discouragement  in  attempting  to  realize  our  ideas,  throw  thine 
away.  May  we,  rather,  be  willing  to  pass  every  day  under  the  sharp  con- 
demnation of  our  consciences,  and  begin  again.  May  we  never  forsake  the 
path  of  rectitude  because  it  is  steep  and  narrow.  We  pray  that  thou  wilt 
deliver  us  from  unbelief,  and  from  all  sin,  and  bring  us,  at  last,  through  the 
unspeakable  love  of  him  who  gave  himself  for  us,  into  thine  own  immediate 
presence,  where  forever  we  shall  be  schooled  by  thee,  and  forever  shall  re- 
joice in  thee.  And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit  shall  be  praises 
everlasting.    Amen. 


XXV. 

Trustwokthiness. 


TRUSTWORTHINESS. 


"  Help,  Lord ;  for  the  godly  mau  ceaseth ;  for  the  faithful  fail  from  among 
the  children  of  men."— Psalms.  XII,,  1. 


He  is  a  faithful  man  who  keeps  faith.  Faith  is  the  equivalent 
of  fidelity ;  and  fidelity  is  what  we  mean  by  trustworthiness.  He 
who  has  an  assured  character  of  fidelity,  may  be  said  to  be  a  trust- 
worthy man.  It  is  on  the  subject  of  Trusttuorthiness  that  I  shall 
speak  to  you  to-night. 

Although  we  are  not  living  in  such  a  time  as  that  which  led  to 
the  mournful  complaint  of  the  Psalmist ;  although  we  are  not  left 
to  fear  that  goodness  is  failing,  and  that  men  are  becoming  uni- 
versally unfaithful;  yet  it  is  true  that  the  bands  of  obligation  are 
becoming  slack,  and  that  men  are  becoming  less  conscientious. 
Nevertheless,  we  are  growing.  Modern  civilization  is  not  a  fail- 
ure. Our  participation  in  it  is  not  without  eminent  advantage.  It 
becomes,  however,  a  matter  of  more  than  curiosity — a  matter  of 
self-interest,  and  of  Christian,  earnest  desire — to  know  whether 
we  are  keeping  pace  by  moral  growth,  with  our  intellectual  and 
physical  development. 

Our  people  are  becoming  more  generally  intelligent ;  more  apt 
in  industrial  avocations;  more  widely  enterprising;  more  generally 
successful.  They  are  establishing  individual  power  and  liberty. 
They  are  grouping  themselves  successfully  in  households.  They 
are  rising  to  a  higher  level,  on  an  average,  than  has  characterized 
the  households  of  former  ages,  or  other  nations.  We  are  amassing 
wealth.  There  is  a  tendency  to  distribute  culture ;  and,  conse- 
quently, we  behold  refinement  of  manners. 

All  these  things  are  well.  They  would  follow  in  the  footsteps 
of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  But  tliey  are  all  of  them  of  little  account 
if  the  ethical  power  of  the  Gospel  is  left  out.  If  the  sense  of 
obligation  whicli  holds  a  man  together,  and  gives  him  unity  and 
universality  in  goodness,  shrinks;  if  the  sense  of  conscience 
between  man  and  man  grows  feeble,  then  all  our  collateral 
advantages  will  ])e  but  delusions  and  deceits.     There  is  no  growth 

on-  ll^^£i^^'  ^^EX'NG,  Juno  0,  1872.    Lesson.  Psa.  ill.    Uymns  (Plymouth  Collection);   Nos. 
vUUi  o47,  ool. 


452  TEUSTWOBTHINESS. 

worth  having  which  does  not  crystallize  around  about  a  center  of 
substantial,  sturdy,  moral  goodness. 

Without  fidelity  to  all  the  duties  of  a  true  man  in  society  there 
can  be  no  religion  which  is  of  any  value.  It  is  quite  possible  for 
men  to  be  religious  and  wicked.  It  is  quite  possible  for  men  to 
have  an  ardor  of  devotion  toward  God  with  very  little  sense  of 
obligation  toward  their  fellow  men.  It  is  quite  possible  for  men 
to  make  religious  sensibilities  and  religious  experiences  a  substitute 
for  ethical  integrity. 

My  belief  is  that  among  those  who  are  mingling  in  life,  who  are 
bearing  its  burdens  and  necessary  cares,  and  who  are  called  to  the 
transaction  of  business,  there  is  the  growing  impression  that  men 
are  becoming  more  and  more  untrustworthy.  I  will  admit  that 
there  may  be  some  illusion  in  the  matter — that  is,  that  in  the  great 
expanse  of  business,  and  in  the  augmentation  of  affairs  generally,  so 
many  more  men  are  called  to  responsible  and  trustworthy  positions, 
that  the  supply  is  relatively  less  on  the  increase  than  tlae  demands 
which  are  created  for  trustworthy  men,  and  that  the  tendency  is  to 
suppose  that  the  number  of  trustworthy  men  is  gradually  decreas- 
ing-; while  in  fact  the  necessity  for  trustworthy  men  is  increasing 
out  of  proportion  to  the  supply. 

But  Avith  every  just  allowance,  with  every  prudent  and  proper 
qualification,  we  still  feel  that  relatively  we  are  losing  ground  in  the 
matter  of  trustworthiness.  A  great  many  are  honest,  a  great  many 
are  comparatively  truthful,  a  great  many  are  sturdy  in  a  conscien- 
tious fidelity;  but,  after  all,  looking  at  the  tendencies,  at  the  general 
drift,  at  the  common  impression  of  men  who  are  competent  to  form 
a  judgment  on  the  subject,  I  cannot  but  fear  that  one  of  the 
features  of  our  times  is  a  growing  looseness  in  fidelity. 

Let  us  look  at  it  in  a  few  points  in  Avhich  we  may  be  able  to 
judge.  Let  us  consider  it,  in  the  first  place,  in  regard  to  truth, 
which  is  the  central  trunk  of  trustworthiness.  It  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  a  growing  want  of  sensibility  to  honor  and  religious 
fidelity,  in  the  matter  of  simple  truth.  I  perceive  that  in  ordinary 
conversation  men  are  not  as  careful  of  truth  as  they  sliould  be.  I 
am  not  speaking  of  wilful  falsehoods,  or  of  the  propagation  and 
circulation  of  untruths.  I  am  not  speaking"  of  the  invention  of 
lies,  nor  of  the  currency  given  to  them  by  scandalous  conversation. 
I  refer  to  carelessness  of  truth.  I  refer  to  heedless  and  rash  state- 
ments. I  refer  to  practices  which  indicate,  perhaps,  not  any  intent 
of  wrong,  but  rather  the  want  of  a  love  for  the  exact  truth,  or  the 
want  of  sense  and  sensibility  in  particular.  I  do  not  mean  exag- 
gerations, tliough  I  think  them  to  be  very  mischievous;  or  to  blun- 


TBUSTWOBTIIINESS.  453 

dering  aberrations  from  truth,  which  may  or  may  not  be  mis- 
chievous: I  refer  to  a  low  sense  or  tone  of  conscience  in  regard 
to  accuracy  and  fidelity  on  the  subject  of  truth-speaking  ;  the  habit 
of  tiilking  of  things  which  people  know  nothing  about,  as  if  they 
knew  all  about  them ;  the  way  of  giving  personal  seal  and  stamp 
to  statements  which  one  has  taken  no  pains  to  ascertain  the  truth  of 

We  arc  universally  a  reading  people.  We  have  spread  before  us 
an  immense  lagoon  of  knowledge  every  day.  All  things  which 
pertain  to  governmeut,  and  to  business,  and  to  household,  and, 
unhappily,  to  individuals  and  private  affairs,  are  exposed  to  the 
13ublic  view.  And  there  is  a  want  of  judicial  honesty  in  speaking 
of  these  things.  We  catch  up  things  hastily.  We  do  not  care  to 
examine  them.  We  affirm  them  positively.  There  is  the  want  of 
consideration.  There  is  the  want  of  a  manly  love  of  things  just  as 
they  are,  rigidly  true,  nothing  more  and  nothing  less.  Carelessness 
of  truth  indicates  a  low  state  of  conscience.  There  is  a  sad  lack 
of  fidelity  where  men  do  not  care  what  they  say. 

Truth  is  the  backbone  of  honor.  It  is  the  backbone  of  trust- 
worthiness. It  is  the  backbone  of  manhood  itself  A  man  who 
does  not  care  for  the  truth  is  no  betttvr  than  a  jelly-fish.  He  has  no 
stability;  no  firmness;  no  integrity;  no  organizing  substance. 

I  apprehend,  too,  that  over  and  above  this  carelessness,  there  is, 
in  the  rivalries  and  pressures  of  affairs,  a  growing  tendency  to  mis- 
represent the  truth.  This  is  not  the  less  dangerous  because  it  is 
becoming  so  exquisitely  artistic.  We  regard  him  as  vulgar  who  is 
obliged  to  tell  a  lie  outright.  We' think  the  thing  should  be  done 
by  implication.  He  is  considered  a  blunderer,  nowadays,  who 
tells  a  lie.  He  ought  to  tell  the  truth  so  that  it  shall  tell  the  lie. 
It  is  a  matter  of  dexterity.  The  throwing  of  a  shadow  is  enough. 
Men  throw  shadows  on  people's  paths,  and  produce  certain  impres- 
sions on  their  minds ;  and  then  when  they  are  arraigned  for  having 
made  this  or  that  misstatement,  they  say,  "  I  did  not  say  so.  I 
never  said  any  such  thing.  If  you  understood  me  so,  that  is  your 
look  out."  Men  really  trap  each  other  by  half-truths.  Half- 
truths  are  the  devil's  whole  lies. 

More  and  more,  it  seems  to  me,  in  the  complicated  afiairs  of 
life,  in  the  heated  rivalries  of  business,  in  their  attempts  to  over- 
master each  other,  in  their  conflicts,  men  allow  themselves  to  use 
truth  simply  as  an  instrument  of  interest  and  convenience.  They 
degrade  it  from  its  high  function  as  a  ruling  principle,  and  as  a 
thing  to  be  revered  in  the  name  of  God,  and,  being  willing  to  use 
it  as  a  mere  currency,  they  soon  debase  it. 

More  than  that,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  promises  are  kept 


454  TBUSTW0BTHINE8S. 

as  they  ought  to  be.  The  tendency  is  not  in  the  right  direction 
in  that  regard.  There  are  some  men  whose  word  is  as  good  aa 
their  bond,  it  is  said.  May  their  posterity  be  as  the  sands  of  the 
seashore  !  And  yet,  the  number  of  men  whose  Word  is  as  good  as 
tkeir  bond  is  not  great. 

More  than  that ;  unless  men  put  their  word  into  legal  form,  so 
that  they  can  be  coerced,  it  is  not  generally  considered  that  their 
promises  are  worth  much.  I  am  not  saying  that  there  are  not 
many  honest  men  in  every  walk  of  life  who,  when  they  promise, 
perform ;  but  I  mean  to  say  that  the  tendency  is  not  in  that  di- 
rection. It  is  the  other  way.  Men  make  more  promises  and  keep 
less,  every  single  ten  years.  They  are  more  and  more  inclined  to 
look  at  things  sanguinely.  They  promise  in  one  mood,  and  change 
their  mind  in  another.  They  are  disposed  to  make  promises  when 
things  look  favorable,  and  to  draw  back,  under  one  and  another 
excuse,  when  things  turn  against  them.  They  swear  to  their  own 
hurt,  and  do  not  keep  their  oath  when  they  find  that  they  can  get 
away  from  it. 

In  this  and  other  ways,  it  seems  to  me,  tlie  tendency  of  our 
times  is  not  in  the  direction  of  the  cleansing  power  of  spuitual 
religion  in  the  matter  of  truth-speaking,  which  is  the  fountain 
from  which  almost  all  efforts  spring  in  a  true  manhood. 

Trustworthiness,  also,  under  assumed  obligations,  seems  to  me 
to  be  relaxing.  I  refer  now  to  the  things  which  men  undertake  to 
do ;  to  the  functions  which  they  assume ;  to  the  positions  which 
they  accept.  We  have  an  army  of  agents,  of  clerks,  of  subordi- 
nates in  various  degi'ees,  in  offices  and  stores  and  manufactories,  to 
whom  we  are  obliged  to  commit  portions  of  our  affairs ;  and  there 
should  exist  between  the  two  parties  in  every  case — the  employer 
and  the  employed — a  sentiment  of  honor.  There  should  be  a  feel- 
ing of  kindly  good-will  on  the  part  of  the  superior,  and  a  feeling 
of  affectionate  respect  on  the  part  of  the  inferior.  But  I  think 
iOaese  things  are  being  disintegrated  by  the  spirit  of  the  times. 
There  is  a  kind  of  spurious  individual  liberty.  There  is  a  sense  in 
every  man  that  he  is  under  obligation  to  nobody ;  that  he  has  only 
to  hew  his  own  way ;  that  he  simply  has  his  own  fortune  to  make; 
that  he  has  no  one  but  himself  to  serve ;  that  he  is  to  consider  the 
question  of  his  own  selfish  advantage,  and  not  the  question  of 
honor  and  obligation.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  sentiment  of  ser- 
vice is  becoming  very  much  enfeebled. 

Now,  human  society  cannot  cohere  where  a  man  cannot  trust 
his  fellow  man.  As  soon  as  selfishness  teaches  the  young  how  to 
interpret  their  duties,  and  how  to  discharge  them,  so  soon  that  de- 


TBUSTWOETHIN£;SS.  455 

cay  will  have  begun  which  will,  like  dry  rot  in  timber,  bring  down 
the  whole  fabric  of  society  itself.  You  cannot  discharge  your  du- 
ties to  humanity  without  being  in  subordination  one  to  another. 

Society  organizes  itself  by  relative  superiorities  or  inferiorities. 
We  cannot  escape,  by  any  theories,  from  this  inevitable  necessity. 
It  is  as  much  a  law  of  nature  as  any  material  coercing  law. 
It  is  full  of  benignity.  It  is  full  of  mutual  obligation.  The 
superior  is  servant  in  love  to  the  inferior ;  and  the  inierior  is  ser- 
vant in  conscience  to  the  superior.  So  they  are  relatively  knitted 
together,  and  are  necessary  one  to  the  other.  And  it  is  here  that 
fidelity  is  required,  and  that  men  should  discharge  as  in  the  fear  of 
God  the  obligations  which  they  owe  to  men. 

But  it  is  the  complaint  on  all  hands — I  hear  it  every  day — that 
it  is  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  find  competent  young  men 
who  can  be  trusted.  It  is  a  shame.  To  a  patriot  in  heart  it  is  a 
sorrow  and  a  grief  to  hear  such  things  said.  I  would  that  they 
were  not  in  any  measure  true.  I  hope  it  is  not  as  true  as  many 
represent  it  to  be.  But  that  it  should  be  true  at  all  is  a  shame. 
And  that  religion,  and  Christian  associations,  and  Christian 
churches,  and  Christian  households,  do  not  bring  out  more  young 
men  who  are  faithful  in  their  obligations  to  their  employers  is  a 
shame.  They  fail,  all  of  them,  to  perform  the  duty  that  is  specially 
incumbent  upon  them.  For  a  young  manhood  that  is  only 
smart  and  brilliant  and  capable,  but  is  not  faithful,  is  rotten 
at  the  core.  I  hear  the  same  complaint  in  respect  to  the  obliga- 
tioBS  of  men  with  regard  to  promised  work  among  the  vast  mul- 
titude of  laborers  who  throng  the  continent.  Far  be  it  from  me  to 
say  that  there  is  among  them  in  any  greater  degree  than  among 
any  other  class,  the  disposition  to  shirk  obligations,  or  to  bring  less 
conscience  or  more  selfishness  to  the  discharge  of  their  daily  duties; 
nevertheless,  it  is  true  (I  hope  the  tendency  in  that  direction  Is 
only  temporary,  and  that  a  better  condition  of  things  will  yet  pre- 
vail) that  work  is  not  performed  as  faithfully  as  it  should  be,  nor 
as  faithfully  as  the  understanding  is  that  it  shall  be. 

It  is  very  hard,  too,  for  men  who  are  moderate.  They  say  that 
their  employers  are  immoderate,  and  that  they  must  defend  them- 
selves. Because  their  employers  afe  selfish  and  grasping  toward 
them,  they  are  selfish  and  graspiug  back  again.  Eye-service  is  be- 
coming too  common ;  and  a  faithful  and  conscientious  perform- 
ance of  work,  not  for  the  sake  of  one's  own  self-interest,  but  in  the 
love  of  fidelit}^  is  not  increasing.  I  think  the  contrary  tendency 
'S  growing. 

Work  is  not  well  done.    It  is  more  extravagantly  paid,  and 


456  TBUSTW0BTEINES8. 

there  is  less  and  less  time  given  to  it.  The  price  demanded  is 
greater  and  greater,  and  the  work  is  more  and  more  unsatisfactory. 
I  am  in  this  matter  very  sensitive.  I' sprang  from  workmen.  Al- 
most all  my  ancestors  were  mechanics  ;  and  I  am  not  ashamed  of 
work.  Since  Christ  was  the  sou  of  a  carpenter,  and  was  himself  a 
working  man  ;  since  work  has  had  so  noble  a  pilgrimage  and  func- 
tion in  life,  I  count  it  no  small  honor  that  I  sprang  from  the  loins  of 
men  who  swung  the  hammer  on  anvil,  and  drew  the  wax-end  in 
the  harness-shop.  I  am  proud  that  I  know  how  to  work,  and  that  I 
could  gain  a  living  by  my  hands  if  I  should  fail  to  get  it  by  my 
head.  And  I  feel  an  intense  and  growing  sympathy,  not  simply 
for  those  who  are  Avorkmen,  but  for  those  who  are  by  work  strug- 
gling to  so  manage  their  affairs  as  to  gain  more  means  and  more  , 
power.  But  he  who  coins  his  conscience  to  buy  prosperity,  has  lost 
his  manhood  for  the  sake  of  decorating  his  corpse  with  a  more 
sightly  shroud.  It  is  a  thing  to  be  mourned  over  when  working 
men  have  lost  the  sentiment  of  manly  fidelity,  and  when  they  are 
men-pleasers  and  eye-servers,  and  not  workers  who  work  in  the 
fear  of  God  and  in  the  love  of  fidelity. 

I  am  afraid  that  those  who  reproach  them  most  cannot  always 
cast  the  first  stone  with  propriety.  When  I  look  beyond  the  work- 
men to  those  who  are  in  the  ranks  above  them,  I  am  sorry  to  say  I 
do  not  find  the  same  trustworthiness,  or  the  trustworthiness  that 
one  might  expect.  Are  grocers  trustworthy?  Are  market-men 
trustworthy  ?  Are  merchants  trustworthy  ?  Are  manufacturers 
trustworthy  ?  Can  any  man,  unless  he  is  armed  with  all  the  skill 
of  a  chemist,  unless  his  eyes  are  microscopic  and  his  hand  laborato- 
rial,  go  into  the  market  and  buy  fabrics  that  are  not  a  cheat  ?  Is 
cloth  cloth  ?  Is  silk  silk  ?  Are  colors  real  colors  ?  Can  a  man 
nrocure  the  medicine  that  is  to  save  his  own  life,  or  his  child's  life, 
and  not  have  it  adulterated  ?  Does  not  the  loom  lie  ?  Do  not  the 
scale  and  steelyards  lie  ?  Is  not  the  whole  traffic  of  society  resting  on 
a  false  basis  ?  Is  there  not  an  element  of  imitation  which  is  sub- 
stantial counterfeiting  ?  Is  there  not  an  element  of  infidelity  that 
runs  through  all  the  commerce  between  men  and  men,  honeycomb- 
ing it  ?  Men  know  it,  and  talk  about  it,  and  say,  "  Oh,  it  is  the 
custom.     It  is  the  way  of  the  world." 

So,  then,  when  you  drink  milk,  you  do  not  drink  milk.  When 
you  eat  bread,  you  do  not  cat  bread.  When  you  drink  coffee,  it  is 
not  coffee.  When  you  take  medicine,  it  is  no  longer  medicine.  We 
are  fighting  a  battle  of  dishonesty  which  is  running  through  every 
element  that  is  produced  by  the  industries  of  society.  Men  thrive 
on  deception ;  and  it  scarcely  enters  into  their  conception  that  it  is 
inconsistent  with  manhood,  or  with  their  relations  in  society. 


TBUSTWOETEINESS.  457 

f  like  to  hoar  of  eminent  Cliristian  experiences.  I  like  to  hear 
mwa  tell  me  Avhat  a  flood  of  grace  they  have  had,  and  what  a  fire  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  has  descended  upon  them,  and  how  it  has  swept 
out  their  hearts.  I  would  to  God  it  had  swept  out  their  stores ! 
Change  of  heart  is  good,  but  change  of  life  is  better.  It  would  at 
least  be  more  agreeable  to  one's  neighbors. 

How  is  it  in  this  matter  ?  Is  there  anything  in  religious  doc- 
trine that  is  an  equivalent  for  ethical  Christianity  ?  Is  there  any- 
thing that  is  a  substitute  for  fidelity  between  man  and  man  ?  "No," 
men  say;  "but  you  can't  live  if  you  do  not  do  as  others  do."  "Well, 
it  is  not  necessary  that  you  should  live.  Wlien  a  man  cannot  live 
consistently  with  manliness,  it  is  time  for  him  to  die.  But  that  is 
false.  A  man  can  live  right,  although  he  may  have  to  fight  for  it. 
Christian  manhood  is  the  thing  for  which  we  are  called  to  fight  the 
battle  of  life. 

How  is  it  in  respect  to  offices  of  trust  ?  I  would  not  (for  I  think 
it  would  be  immoral)  spread  the  impression  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  public  honesty  and  public  honor.  I  believe  there  are  a 
great  many  men  who  are  faithful  in  office,  both  in  the  higher  and 
lower  spheres  of  public  service.  I  would  fain  hope  that  the  dishon- 
est men  are  the  exceptions.  I  have  no  means  of  stating  accurately 
the  proportion  of  those  that  are  honest,  and  those  that  are  dishon- 
est. I  merely  say,  it  seems  to  me  that  during  the  last  twenty  years 
defalcations,  embezzlements,  all  manner  of  official  dishonesties,  have 
relatively  increased  out  of  pi'oportion  to  the  increase  of  the  offices 
themselves.  It  seems  to  me  there  is  less  conscience  and  a  larger 
temptation  to  betray  trust  than  there  used  to  be.  It  seems  to  me 
there  are  more  persons  who  fall  under  the  steady  pressure  of  temp- 
tation than  formerly  there  were. 

We  have  had  most  solemn  lessons  given  to  us  in  this  respect; 
but  /  tell  you  tliat  they  upon  lohom  the  tower  of  Siloam  fell  are  not 
more  guilty  than  all  they  that  are  at  Jerusalem.  We  are  all  of  us 
at  fault.  And  yet  I  do  not  think  that  men  are  bad  altogether, 
according  to  the  magnitude  of  their  operations.  I  regard  the 
great  outbreaks  —  the  peculations,  the  combinations,  the  official 
dishonesties — which  we  see  in  society,  as  the  carbuncles.  Where 
does  the  carbuncle  get  its  food  ?  It  draws  it  out  of  the  blood, 
so  that  the  system  dries  up.  And  so  it  is  in  the  matter  of 
public  honesty.  There  is  a  low  sense  of  honor  and  obligation  un- 
der trust  throughout  the  community,  or  men  would  not  adventure 
«uch  things.  The  immediate  perpetrators  of  these  crimes  are  not 
the  less  guilty;  but  they  are  not  alone  guilty.  And  no  man  should 
feel  that  his  duty  to  the  community  is  done  when  he  has  damned 


458"  TBUSTWOETHINESS. 

these  culprits.    There  is  something  back  of  them  of  which  I  shall 
speak  by  and  by. 

In  the  higher  places  of  responsibility  there  is,  it  seems  to  me,  a 
corrupt  standard.  Men  in  office  are  oftentimes  faithful  to  their 
political  party ;  in  fulfilling  their  pledges  to  their  friends  they  have 
a  special  and  partial  fidelity ;  but  their  larger  obligation  to  patriot- 
ism, to  God,  and  to  their  fellow-men,  they  do  not  feel.  We  need 
to  have  an  intoned  conscience  in  the  administration  of  public  and 
civil  trusts. 

Our  courts  need  to  be  tuned  up,  and  tuned  again.  They  have 
fallen  below  "'  concert  pitch."  Our  legislatures  need  a  higher  sense 
of  what  is  true  and  manly.  Our  gubernatorial  chair  will  bear  more 
of  the  old  oak  of  freedom  which  was  in  vogue  when  patriotism  and 
self-denial  went  with  honors  and  trusts.  Our  representatives  all 
through  the  land  betray  their  trust,  and  are  guilty  of  the  grossest 
infidelity — infidelity,  not  to  the  Book  or  to  orthodoxy,  but  to 
honesty. 

These  things  being  so,  how  shall  we  meet  this  tendency  to 
untrustworthiness  ? 

I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  is  impossible  to  legislate 
iniquity  out  of  the  Avorld.  The  object  of  law  is  to  give  a  standing- 
place  from  which  men  can  operate,  where  the  public  conscience  has 
been  instructed,  and  where  that  public  conscience  is  on  the  side  of 
purity  and  justice  and  truth.  But  law  alone  is  inoperative.  You 
may  make  law  upon  law;  your  law's  may  be  divided  and  sub- 
divided, but  you  never  can  so  multiply  laws  as  by  them  to  overcome 
dishonesty.  The  moment  you  make  a  law  to  stop  dishonesty,  dis- 
honesty will  undermine  it.  Law  is  overleaped  and  evaded  in  a 
multitude  of  ways,  and  depravity  works  on.  You  cannot  by  laws 
correct  the  evils  of  society.  But  law  enables  honest  men  and 
public  sentiment  to  daunt  and  restrain  men  who  are  at  all  restrain - 
able.  You  cannot  correct  any  great  public  evil  in  any  other  way 
than  by  teaching  the  public.  If  men  are  unfaithful,  the  fault  lies 
m  the  public  sentiment  of  the  whole  community.  Fidelity  is  to 
be  the  result  of  a  better  education  ;  of  a  higher  Christianity;  of  a 
new  and  a  nobler  application  of  ethical  principles  to  every  part  of 
society. 

We  must  have  a  higher  sense  of  manhood  taught  in  the  house- 
hold, my  brethren.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to  succeed  in  being 
considered  a  man.  It  is  not  enough  for  a  man  to  teach  his  children 
that  they  are  to  prosper  by  an  accumulation  of  Avealth,  or  by  a 
larilliant  reputation  in  a  profession. 

It  is  not  enough,  either,  to  teach  our  children  that  the  chief  end 


TBUSTWOBTEINESS.  459 

of  life  is  to  get  out  of  it  safely.  It  is  not  enough  to  teach  ihem 
that  if  they  have  a  hope,  and  avoid  anything  like  reproach  for 
inconsistent  Christian  living,  when  they  die  they  will  be  very  well 
oflf,  as  that  hope  will  take  care  of  them  at  the  other  end.  It  is 
necessary  to  teach  our  children  essential  manliness,  for  the  sake  of 
manliness;  truth,  for  the  sake  of  truth;  right,  because  right  is 
better  intrinsically;  nobleness,  because tliat  is  an  attribute  of  man- 
hood. We  must  inspire  our  children  with  higher  conceptions  of 
the  dignity  of  right-living,  and  of  the  nobility  of  real  manhood. 
And  it  cannot  be  done  by  a  word  dropped  here  and  there.  It  cannot 
be  done  by  a  little  instruction  imparted  now  and  then.  It  must  be 
done  when  you  are  kneading  the  batch.  There  is  many  a  dish  that 
you  cannot  put  pepper  and  salt  into  after  it  is  cooked.  They  must 
be  put  in  while  it  is  hot.  And  so  it  is  in  bringing  up  children. 
All  the  essential  instincts  of  a  nobler  manhood  are  to  be  melted 
and  worked  into  them  while  they  are  growing  up.  It  is  not 
enough  to  teach  them  that  they  must  learn  hymns,  and  write  texts 
of  Scripture,  and  be  pious  and  good  on  Sunday,  and  be  respectable, 
and  get  through  life  with  a  good  reputation.  They  must  have  a 
sense  instilled  into  tliem  that  there  is  something  higher  than  reputa- 
tion— namely,  character.  The  reality  that  is  in  them  must  be  more 
and  more  held  up  before  their  youthful  minds. 

Fathers  and  mothers,  with  you  lie  the  beginnings  of  the  cor- 
rection of  the  evils  with  which  we  have  to  contend  in  society. 
Start  men  better;  lay  the  keel  better;  put  up  the  ribs  better;  run 
the  lines  better ;  and  the  result  will  be  better  by  and  by. 

Then  there  is  a  point  in  which  our  schools  can  teach  religion,  I 
think,  with  the  consent  of  the  churches.  There  are  many  churches 
that  do  not  believe  in  the  introduction  of  the  Bible  into  schools. 
The  Jew  will  let  you  introduce  the  Old  Testament,  but  not  the 
New.  The  Roman  Catholic  will  let  you  introduce  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  if  you  will  take  his  version,  in  the  hands  of  his 
teachers.  The  Protestant  will  let  you  introduce  the  Protestant 
interpretation  of  the  Scripture.  But  there  are  men  who  will  not 
let  you  introduce  it  at  all. 

Wherever  it  can  be  done  without  dissent,  I  am  decidedly  in 
favor  of  having  the  Bibl  •  in  our  common  schools ;  but  wherever 
any  part  of  the  constituents  of  our  common  scliools  conscientiously 
resist  it,  I  say  you  have  no  right  to  introduce  technical  religion  and 
the  instruments  thereof,  into  those  schools.  You  cannot  do  it 
without  a  violation  of  our  American  principles. 

But  there  are  some  things  that  you  can  introduce  into 
schools  with  perfect  propriety — not   theology;,  not  " fore-ordiua- 


460  TEUSTW0BTEINE88. 

tion  ; "  not  "  election  ; "  not  "  effectual  calling ; "  not  "  regenera- 
tion;" not  "  the  trinity;"  not  any  of  the  great  doctrinal  forms  and 
instruments  of  religion*;  but  truth,  purity,  integrity,  honesty, 
fidelity,  benevolence,  good-will,  patriotism.  These  elements  are  not 
sectarian.  They  are  universal.  If  you  may  not  bring  the  tree 
into  the  school,  you  may  bring  some  of  the  fruits  which  the  tree 
bears  into  the  school.  And  you  must.  There  is  no  period  when 
the  mind  takes  on  the  heroic  faster  than  the  earlier  periods  of 
instruction. 

Oh !  what  an  intense  hater  of  the  British  I  became  when  I  was 
a  school-boy!  Did  I  not  go  with  Paul  Jones  on  his  cruising 
voyages  ?  Did  I  not  glory  in  the  battles  that  he  fought  against  our 
father's  oppressors  ?  I  have  got  bravely  over  it  now  ;  but  I  remem- 
ber how  fired  my  young  views  were  with  the  combative  patriotism 
which  the  school-books  taught  us  at  that  time.  I  knew  every  vessel 
that  went  out  o'f  the  harbor  in  1812.  I  knew  every  incident  of 
every  battle.  I  knew  almost  every  soldier,  I  was  going  to  say,  tha< 
tramped  the  revolutionary  fields,  and  gloried  in  every  one  of  them. 
And  it  was  not  until  ripe  and  middle  life,  and  after  the  church- 
feeling  of  brotherhood  had  quite  rubbed  out  the  old  prejudice,  that 
I  ceased  to  cherish  a  spirit  of  animosity  toward  old  England,  the 
old  mother-country,  the  grand  old  parent  of  us  all ;  a  noble  nation. 
Like  oaks,  it  has  some  gall-nuts,  some  vast  knots,  gnarling  roots. 
She  has  many  faults,  as  such  a  nation  must  have,  that  has  such 
brawn  and  bone  and  muscle;  but  I^ thank  God  for  England.  And 
I  am  proud  that  I  have  blood  that  came  out  of  her  veins,  and  that 
she  is  mother,  not  alone  of  our  bodies,  but  of  our  ideas,  and  of  our 
liberties,  and  of  our  institutions ;  but  it  took  me  years  to  get  over 
the  efiects  of  primary  education  in  regard  to  the  British. 

Now,  if  our  children  are  so  sensitive ;  if,  when  their  characters 
are  being  formed,  the  pictures  which  are  painted  on  their  minds  re- 
main, how  much  would  be  gained  if  all  our  children  in  the  common 
schools  were  inspired  with  ideas  of  trustworthy,  honest,  truth-speak- 
ing, conscientious  manhood  I 

Then,  there  has  been  a  great  foult  of  neglect  in  the  pulpit. 
These  things  ought  ye  to  have  preached — the  doctrines  of  Christi- 
anity, and  tlie  experimental  elements  of  Christianity ;  but  these 
other  things  ought  ye  not  to  have  neglected.  Religion  ought  to  be 
brought  home  to  men  in  such  a  way  that  every  one  who  goes  for  a 
montli  to  a  church,  shall  feel  that  he  has  been  accepted  if  he  has 
been  made  to  feel  the  application  of  religion  in  those  very  places  in 
himself  where  he  is  most  liable  to  break  down  ;  where  most  he  needs 
stimulus  and  up-building.      Unless  our  pulpits  have  a  higher  and 


TBU8TW0BTH1NESS.  461 

more  discerning,  discriminating  teaching ;  unless  they  advocate  uni- 
versal benevolence  and  justice  in  human  affairs,  as  they  are  in  the 
day  in  which  we  live,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  hold  the  conscience  of 
this  great  nation  steadfast  in  this  time  of  its  unfolding  and  outward 
prosperity. 

"VVe  are  living  in  an  age  when  the  temptations  to  untrustworthi- 
ness  will  not  diminish.  They  will  increase.  Never  was  there  such 
a  people  spread  over  a  territory.  Never  was  there  a  territory  with 
such  a  population.  We  are  not  drawing  to  us  the  old  and  infirm 
of  other  lands.  The  ships  that  bring  armies  of  emigrants  hither, 
are  bringing  the  young,  the  capable,  the  hopeful.  They  are  all 
striving,  with  lusty  hearts  and  stalwart  arms,  for  a  better  future. 
And  in  this  vast  and  mingling  mass  of  aspiring  men,  Avith  different 
constitutions,  and  different  natures,  and  different  religions,  it  is 
extremely  hard  to  have  a  common  sentiment,  and  to  have  that  com- 
mon sentiment  an  ethical  one.  The  spirit  of  the  day  in  which  we 
live  is  physical.  The  impulse  toward  enterprise  and  development 
is  material. 

Under  such  circumstances,  in  the  midst  of  rivalries,  and  compe- 
titions, and  unregulated  and  over-stimulated  ambitions,  we  shall  be 
likely  to  see  less  and  less  of  sturdy  trastworthineiSS  and  old-fash- 
ioned virtue.  When  a  man's  least  word  is  as  good  as  his  bond 
— when,  if  a^man  promise,  though  he  promise  rashly  and  hastil)',  he 
stands  to  his  promise,  even  if  it  takes  half  of  his  fortune — then  we 
may  look  for  the  speedy  ushering  in  of  the  millenium;  but  simple, 
indomitable  trustworthiness  I  am  afraid  is  to  be  hung  up  as  Ave 
hang  up  the  short  breeches,  the  knee-buckles,  the  three-cornered  hats, 
the  old  garments,  the  memorials  of  days  gone  by,  Avhen  other  cos- 
tumes were  worn,  and  other  customs  prevailed. 

God  forbid  that  human  nature  should  unfold  by  its  weaknesses 
rather  than  by  its  strong  sides  or  elements.  God  forbid  that  the 
fruit  of  the  Gospel  should  be,  not  righteousness  and  purity  and 
love,  carrying  justice,  but  self-indulgence,  and  self-seeking,  and 
selfishness,  and  grasping  injustice,  leading  to  inequalities,  in  which 
the  strong  tread  down  the  Aveak,  society  itself  becoming  an  engine 
of  mischief,  and  laws  making  iniquity  safe.  • 

Let  every  parent  take  heed.  Let  every  school-teacher  take  heed. 
Let  every  minister  of  the  Gospel  take  heed.  Let  every  editor,  or- 
dained for  modern  civilization,  take  heed.  He  Avho  to-day  sits  in 
the  editorial  chair,  sits  second  to  none.  In  all  the  world  of  influ- 
ence, it  is  for  liim  to  discriminate  botAvcen  rigkt  and  Avrong,  and  to 
be  always  on  the  side  of  truth,  and  justice,  and  pui'ity,  and  manli- 
ness.   And  if  the  school,  and  the  household,  and  the  church,  and 


462  TEUSTWOBTHINESS. 

the  editorial  chair,  co-operate  with  all  the  good  men  in  the  great 
professions  and  trades  in  the  land;  if  we  take  hold  of  hands  for  a 
better  sentiment  and  for  a  uoble  purity,  we  shall  be  able  to  resist 
the  devil  to  the  degree  that  though  he  may  not  flee  from  us, 
be  will  let  us  alone  for  a  time ;  and  I  believe  we  shall  raise  the 
standard  character  of  young  men,  so  that  we  shall  be  proud  of  their 
honor,  and  their  honor  shall  be  in  their  truth,  and  in  their  honesty ; 
and  it  shall  be  said,  not  only,  "  The  fear  of  God  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom,"  but  "  The  love  of  God  is  the  end  of  wisdom." 


XXVI. 

The  Significance  and  Effect  of 
Christ's  Birth. 


THE  SIGIIFICANCE  AID  EFFECT  OF 
CHRIST'S  BIRTH. 


"  For  unto  you  is  bom,  this  day,  in  the  city  of  David,  a  Saviour,  which  is 
Christ  the  Lord."— Luke  II  :11. 


The  thought  of  the  birth  of  the  Saviour  into  the  world  is  spirit- 
ualized by  the  apostle.  Christ  formed  in  you  the  hope  of  glory  was 
a  favorite  style  of  thought  with  him.  It  is,  as  it  were,  a  mystic 
allusion  to  the  peculiar  birth  of  our  Saviour  out  of  the  oixlinary 
course  of  human  affairs.  The  unfolding  of  Christ  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament history,  is  worthy  of  our  tliought,  if  for  no  other  reason,  for 
the  parallelism  which  it  gives  to  the  experience  which  men  have  in 
Christ  Jesus  as  a  personal  Saviour.  The  historical  development 
answers,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  to  that  Avhich  takes  place  per- 
sonally in  those  who  come  to  have  a  saving  and  rejoicing  knowledge 
of  Christ. 

First  in  the  order  of  events,  but  recounted  by  only  one  of  the 
Evangelists — Luke — is  this  beautiful  scene.  I  know  it  has  given 
rise  to  much  critical  speculation,  and  to  much  skeptical  remark;  but 
it  seems  to  me  as  thougli  without  this  peculiar  history  by  Luke,  all 
the  overture,  all  the  music,  in  the  life  of  Christ,  would  be  taken  out 
of  the  way.  Nothing  more  ethereal,  nothing  purer,  nothing  more 
beautiful,  can  be  conceived  of  tlian  this  whole  angelic  appearance 
and  annunciation.  Yet  it  was  made  to  rude  sheijhcrds.  It  Avas 
made  to  the  few  and  not  to  the  many.  It  seems  as  though  it  was 
an  overflow  of  heavenly  joy  meant  for  their  own  enjoying,  rather 
than  as  a  composite  message  sent  by  the  hands  of  many  angels  to 
the  earth.  The  shepherds  heard  what  was  going  on  above.  It  was 
going  on  there  for  higher  spectators,  and  for  souls  rejoicing  among 
the  blessed ;  but,  as  it  Avere,  it  broke  forth,  and  some  of  the  strains 
fell  upon  the  earth,  not  like  an  anthem  or  chorus ;  but  as  here  and 
there  music  is  heard  on  a  summer  night,  afar  off,  snatches  being 
wafted  to  us,  and  then  being  hushed  again  by  intervening  noises  or 

SUJTDAY  EVTE.vixo,  Doc,  24,  ISTL      LESSON:    Luke  II.    Hyuins  (Plymouth  Collection) 
N08.  215,  249,  247. 


468  THE  SIGNIFICANCE  AND 

"winds,  so  there  seem  to  have  been  snatches  of  this  celestial  music — 
the  annunciation.  These  snatches  did  not  constitute  the  whole 
song  of  heavenly  joy,  but  were  a  part  of  it. 

The  shepherds  passed  away.  Nothing  more  is  known  of  them. 
Their  ministry  Avas  to  be  spectators  and  annunciators ;  and  having 
fulfilled  their  mission  they  sank  out  of  view.  And  now  for  a  long 
time  there  was  no  Christ  of  history.  We  behold  the  babe  lying 
in  a  manger.  His  being  in  a  manger  was  not  a  hardship  so  very 
great  according  to  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  lower  popula- 
tions of  Palestine.  Born  under  circumstances  of  great  obscurity, 
he  lived  in  profound  solitude.  And  among  the  marvels  of  historic 
lore  is  the  fact  that  after  his  return  from  Egypt,  after  he  went  with 
his  mother  to  Nazareth,  almost  nothing  more  was  heard  of  him  for 
a  period  of  nearly  thirty  years,  except  in  one  single  instance.  At 
twelve  years  of  age  he  appeared  at  the  temple  ;  but  besides  that,  for 
this  whole  period,  there  was  hardly  a  word  or  syllable  heard  of 
him. 

To  those  who  think  that  Christ  was  but  a  man  this  may  not 
seem  strange ;  but  to  us  who  hold  that  he  was  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh ;  to  us  who  hold  that  he  bore  divinity  from  the  throne  to  the 
footstool,  for  the  illumination  of  the  race,  this  long  eclipse  seems, 
or  may  seem,  strange.  It  may  seem  strange  that  he  should  pass 
through  those  stages  of  development  which  belong  to  men.  But 
if  we  judge,  not  by  theory  but  by  facts,  as  they  occurred,  was  it  not 
the  purpose  of  God  that  he  should  become  a  man,  not  merely 
standing  in  man's  lot,  but  through  that  long  process  of  evolution 
and  self-consecration  which  belongs  to  the  race ;  that  he  should 
taste  childhood  and  youth  and  early  manhood;  that  he  should  go 
through  the  various  steps  of  intellectual  development  which  are 
common  to  men ;  that  his  soul  should  be  opened  up  by  the  same 
method  that  man's  is  ? 

So  it  is  not  until  many  and  many  years  have  rolled  by ;  it  is  not 
until  childhood  and  early  youth  are  passed,  that  Clirist  appears 
again  upon  the  stage ;  and  then  it  is  as  receiving  the  initiating 
services  and  consecrations  which  should  prepare  him  to  be  recog- 
nized by  his  countrymen  as  a  legitimate  teacher. 

This  presents  us  to  the  third  stage  of  our  Saviour's  life  upon 
earth,  and  the  beginning  of  his  ministry — his  remarkable  appear- 
ing first  in  Judea.  He  seems  to  have  hid  himself  after  baptism 
for  many  months — some  four  or  five — which  we  have  no  account 
of;  but  he  Avas  engaged  in  preaching  a  largo  portion  of  the  time 
during  the  last  years  of  liis  life.  And  his  time  seems  to  have  been 
precious.    We  follow  him  as  he  emerges  from  obscurity,  and  goea 


UFF^CT  OF  CEBISrS  BIBTK  469 

into  Judea,  and  back  to  Galilee,  wliere  the  greatest  part  of  his 
teaching  took  place.  Almost  all  his  miracles  were  performed 
among  his  own  people,  in  the  midst  of  the  mixed  population  of 
Galilee.  There  the  people  were  more  largely  cosmopolitan  than  in 
any  other  part  of  the  Eastern  country.  What  he  was  to  them,  we 
well  know.  He  was  a  wonder,  a  marvel  to  them.  If  they  had  been 
called  upon  to  interpret  precisely  their  thoughts  of  him,  they  would 
have  said,  *'  He  is  a  Rabbi."  What  was  a  Eabbi  ?  An  eminent 
Jewish  teacher.  He  was  justly  held  in  reverence  by  them.  And 
as  he  waxed  in  power,  they  began  to  feel  that  he  was  more  than  a 
Rabbi — a  Brophet. 

During  all  this  time  he  was  consorting  with  his  own  disciples 
in  private  discourse  as  well  as  in  public  ministration.  What  was 
he  to  them  ?  We  cannot  discern  exactly.  It  is  impossible,  with 
the  material  we  have,  to  analyze  the  feelings  of  the  disciples.  There 
is  no  record  as  to  how  they  felt.  They  seem  to  have  changed  in 
their  feelings.  Sometimes  they  mounted  up  to  an  enthusiasm 
which  answered  somewhat  to  our  modern  idea  of  fidelity.  At 
other  times  they  seem  to  have  been  no  better  than  the  common 
men  around  about  them.  They  marveled  at  things  which  seem 
familiar  to  us.  They  were  dull.  They  were  laggards.  He  was  not 
yet  interpreted  to  them  except  as  an  extraordinary  Jew  upon  whom 
tlie  Spirit  of  God  rested  in  eminent  measure.  He  was  fitted  of 
God  to  be  their  teacher  and  their  leader. 

After  his  Galilean  ministry  was  in  the  main  completed,  he  set 
his  face  southward  toward  Judea  and  Jerusalem  again;  and  for  the 
last  time  the  records  of  the  Gospel  are  burdened  with  the  fruitful- 
ness  of  his  teaching.  Almost  all  that  lore  of  the  New  Testament 
•which  respects  the  divinity  of  Christ ;  almost  all  those  spiritual 
insights  which  never  yet  have  been  interpreted  perfectly,  and 
which  never  can  be  perfectly  interpreted  excej)t  by  conscious  ex- 
perience ;  all  those  profounder  views  of  Christ  which  made  him 
very  God,  were  presented  in  comparatively  the  last  few  days  of  his 
ministry,  when  he  was  looking  upon  his  passion  and  drawing  near 
to  it.  It  is  in  the  shadow  of  the  great  gr^ef,  and  on  the  eve  of  the 
great  sacrifice,  that  he  poured  out  the  fullness  of  the  inspir.tion 
of  the  New  Testament  on  the  subject. 

Bitt  even  then  his.  disciples  did  not  undei'stand  hun.  And 
when  he  was  seized,  and  seemed  to  have  no  power  to  defend  him- 
self; when  they  beheld  him,  like  any  other  mortal,  called  before 
the  courts,  and  treated  with  contumely,  they  all  forsook  him  and 
fled.  And  there  was  nothing  left  by  which  they  could  hold  fast 
to  their  integrity  but  their  imagination  and  their  love.     But  as  yet 


470  TEE  SIGNIFICANCE  AND 

their  love  had  not  been  fired  by  their  imagination,  nor  had  their 
faith  been  truly  developed.  Around  about  the  judgment-seat  there 
still  lingered  the  influence  of  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration.  They 
who  beheld  Christ  in  his  wondrous  glory  there,  had  the  impression 
of  his  divinity  so  wrought  upon  them  that  not  even  their  senses 
could  dispel  it. 

Then  came  the  mighty  day  of  darkne  s.  There  was  the  sepul- 
cher,  the  silence,  and  the  sweet  rest.  Then  came  the  memorable 
morning,  and  the  opening  of  the  grave,  and  the  coming  forth  of 
the  Saviour,  and  his  disclosure  to  the  women,  and  afterwards,  in 
succession,  to'  different  groups.  And  then  there  were  t|^e  few  high 
and  strange  days  in  which  he  appeared  to  his  disciples  before  his 
ascension.  And  then  Avas  the  matchless  beauty  of  his  ascending 
glory;  and  he  was  in  heaven. 

The  disciples  tarried.  They  waited.  Their  time  had  not  yet 
come.  Eor,  although  they  had  companied  with  Christ  from  the 
first,  and  had  been  made  familiar  Avith  his  lessons  of  instruction, 
and  had  strong  personal  attraction  for  him,  he  was  not  yet  born  in 
them.  He  had  been  born  into  life,  and  had  passed  through  it,  and 
had  gone  up  again  to  the  glory  which  he  had  before  the  world  was, 
with  his  Father ;  and  yet,  to  them  he  had  not  yet  been  disclosed 
except  at  intervals,  with  here  and  there  some  elements  of  his  in- 
terior and  true  spiritual  force.  No  such  Christ  had  they  as  after 
the  day  of  Pentecost  burst  upon  their  understanding  and  upon 
their  experience.  For,  when  the  appointed  time  came,  there  did 
descend  upon  them  the  bright  influence  and  sweet  inspiration  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Then  they  waked  up  to  a  thought  of  Christ 
which  they  seem  never  to  have  had  before.  Then  there  blazed  out 
of  their  hearts  a  love  for  Christ  which  they  had  never  before  mani- 
fested. And  these  men  who  previously  had  been  timid  and  hesi- 
tant, and  had  interpreted  spiritual  things  carnally,  and,  being 
cowardly,  had  forsaken  Christ — these  men  were  now  endoAved  Avith 
a  royal  courage,  and  Avith  a  glorious  fidelity.  They  set  their  faces 
against  kings.  They  went  before  councils  to  bear  witness,  and 
feared  not  the  wrath  of  man.  They  took  imprisonments  cheer- 
fully. They  went  everywhere  preaching  the  Gospel,  and  suffering 
per  ecutions.  Everywhere  they  exhibited  the  intensest  faith  in 
Christ  Jesus  as  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  EveryAvhere  a  love  that 
surpassed  all  other  loves  filled  their  souls.  Everywhere  they  be- 
came witnesses  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  who  Avas  the  sinner's  Friend, 
the  soul's  Hope,  the  Way  of  life.     This  was  their  experience. 

Now,  as  I  have  intimated,  there  is  a  general  analogy  to  thi^  his- 
tory in  the  experience  of  men,  and  in  the  steps  by  which  they  pro- 
gress to  a  true  and  saving  knowlege  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 


'  ,  EFFECT  OF  CEEISTS  BIBTH.  471 

I  liardly  know  what  Christ  is  to  little  children.  He  hovers 
upon  the  rim  of  their  imagination  as  the  stars  at  evening  hover 
upon  the  horizon.  He  awakens  in  them  wondrous  thoughts  which 
melt  back  into  their  souls  almost  as  fast  as  they  think  them. 
A  little  child's  imagination  is  a  tremulous  emotion  of  the  chords 
of  the  soul.  They  vibrate,  and  cease,  and  vibrate,  and  cease, 
scarcely  working  themselves  up  to  ideas ;  or,  if  they  attain  to  ideas, 
they  never  do  to  memories. 

When  I  look  back  and  think  of  what  I  thought  of  Christ  when 
I  was  four  or  five  years  of  age,  he  seems  to  have  been  something 
bright.  I  had  some  idea  of  him  which  seems  to  have  been  derived 
from,  or  to  have  been  a  kind  of  reflection  of,  my  father  and  my 
mother :  nothing  as  of  myself,  and  nothing  as  from  above,  but  a 
kind  of  vague  feeling  that  there  was  somewhere  a  wondrous  Being, 
with  glorious  attributes.  Christ  is,  for  the  most  part,  hidden  from 
little  children.  He  is  a  legend,  a  sweet  story,  to  them.  He  is  a 
luminous  thought.  He  is  a  mere  suggestion  of  some  vague  influ- 
ence of  rare  excellence. 

But  as  children  grow  into  young  manhood,  more  and  more 
Christ  begins  to  be  taught  to  them  in  the  form  of  historic  facts  and 
of  theological  ideas.  The  Christ  of  whom  we  learn  in  the  schools 
and  in  the  systems  of  theology  is  not  the  Christ  who  is  introduced 
to  us  by  the  Spirit  of  God  afterward. 

I  know  not  whether  it  was  owing  simply  to  the  accident  of  my 
position ;  but  all  my  early  thought  of  Christ  was  a  thought  of  him 
as  a  historic  personage.  I  framed  him  myself  out  of  history ;  and 
he  was  to  me  the  Paragon  of  morality,  and  the  Lesson  of  practical 
life.  He  was  the  great  Model  of  perfection.  And  there  was  some- 
thing more  than  this ;  but  that  more  I  could  not  fathom  nor  feel, 
for  the  most  part.  For  I  was  taught  that  sinfulness  had  shut  me 
out  from  God. 

Now  I  know  that  nothing  brings  God  so  quick  and  so  near  as 
9t  sinking ;  but  the  impression  which  was  left  on  my  mind  by  the 
teaching  that  I  received  then,  was,  that  if  I  grew  up  into  goodness, 
at  last  I  could  come  to  that  state  in  which  I  might  see  Jesus  and 
be  loved  by  him.  As  a  child  is  told,  "  Father  and  mother  will  not 
love  you  unless  you  are  good,"  which  is  a  lie,  so  I  was  impressed 
with  the  thought  that  if  I  was  good  enough  God  would  love  me, 
and  if  I  was  not  good  enough  he  would  not  love  me.  It  was  as  if 
I  should  say,  at  midnight,  to  the  flowers  that  slept  in  the  field,  ''  0 
flowers!  awake;  array  yourselves  in  your  beauteous  colors;  and 
then  you  Avill  see  the  sun."  "Would  not  every  mute  root  say,  "How 
shall  I  live  if  the  sun  does  not  shed  its  light  and  warmth   upon 


472  THE  SIGNIFICANCE  AND 

me  ?"    As  if  there  could  be  any  life  except  that  which  God  breathes 
into  the  soul ! 

The  Christ  of  my  childhood  was  the  Christ  of  duty,  and  the 
Christ  of  historic  facts.  So  far  as  the  heavenly  Christ  was  con- 
cerned, it  was  him  that  I  should  earn  by  living  right.  But  it  gave 
me  very  little  comfort  to  be  told  that  on  that  blessed  day  when, 
with  prayers,  and  strivings,  and  evolutions  of  thought  and  feeling, 
and  changes  'of  conduct,  specific  and  generic,  I  should  rise  up  to  a 
true  manhood,  Christ  would  break  upon  me  in  all  the  beauty  and 
grandeur  of  his  character  as  the  Saviour  of  my  soul.  Alas!  if 
there  is  no  Christ  for  men  until  they  are  competent  to  take  care  of 
themselves,  what  will  become  of  them  ?  Where  is  the  help  for  hu- 
man weakness  to  come  from  ?  How  is  this  want  that  is  universal 
to  be  supplied  ?  Is  there  to  be  no  Christ  that  was  born  to  seek 
and  to  save  sinning  and  sinful  men  in  the  early  conceptions  of 
childhood  ? 

At  last,  out  of  these  obscure  and  loose  notions  of  Chdst,  men 
begin  to  have  a  conception  of  Christ  as  a  Divine  Being :  not  merely 
as  the  Author  of  right  conduct  and  right  dispositions  upon  earth, 
but  as  One  who  inspires,  and  then  answers  in  some  degree  the 
higher  aspirations  of  the  soul,  so  that  it  becomes  conscious  of  its 
own  divinity  and  immortality. 

Then  come  on  periods  of  struggle — such  days  as  the  apostles 
went  through  in  the  last  few  weeks  of  the  life  of  Christ ;  days  with 
hope  and  darkness  alternating;  days  in  which  men's  sense  of  spir- 
itual need  is  profound,  various,  universal ;  days  in  which  they  at- 
tempt to  supply  their,  spiritual  want,  and  do  not  invoke  the  Divine 
Presence,  and  so  do  not  by  the  power  of  faith  in  Christ  overcome  the 
evil  that  is  in  them,  and  bring  every  thought  into  subjection  to  the 
mind  and  will  of  Christ;  days  in  which  Christ  is  to  them  an  in- 
spiration, but  not  a  victory;  days  in  which  Christ  is  to  them  the 
Forerunner,  but  not  a  present  companion ;  days  in  which  Christ 
sits  oftentimes  as  a  schoolmaster,  and  stern  and  severe  at  that  in 
the  lessons  that  he  gives ;  days  in  which  Christ  sits  as  the  Leader 
to  guide  men  through  rough  and  thorny  paths,  but  not  as  a  bosom 
Friend,  and  as  the  soul's  rest. 

At  last  there  comes  a  Christ  such  as  the  apostles  knew — Christ  after 
his  resurrection,  and  after  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  at  the  Pen- 
tecost, when  they  broke  out  into  a  personal  experience  in  which  their 
Bouls  came  into  an  intimate  union  with  their  Lord.  There  is  in 
the  experience  of  Christians  a  day  in  which  from  all  these  longing 
and  hesitant  views,  from  all  these  partial  and  limiting  notions  of 
Christ,  they  come  into  a  personal  adhesipn  to  him.     They  obtain  a 


EFFJSCT  OF  CHEISTS  JBIETH.  473 

view  of  hiin  as  the  expression  of  divine  love  and  mercy.  Tlicy 
obtain  a  sense  of  the  power  of  God  to  lielp  them  to  overcome  evil  in 
themselves  and  in  those  around  about  them.  They  obtain  a  personal 
and  sympathetic  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  by  which  they  can 
say,  "  The  life  which  I  now  live  in  tlie  flesli  I  live  by  faith  of  the 
Son  of  God."  There  is  a  Christ  that  comes  to  men's  imagination 
sweeter  than  music  ever  came  to  the  ear  of  the  musician,  or  than 
poetry  ever  came  to  the  mind  of  the  poet.  There  is  an  experience  of 
men  who  are  truly  Christians,  such  that,  when  Christ  is  transfigured 
to  them,  he  is  no  longer  a  Christ  of  the  Book,  though  primarily  he  was 
derived  from  the  Book  ;  he  is  no  longer  the  Christ  of  their  instruc- 
tion :  he  is  the  Christ  that  has  been  born  in  them,  and  that  supplies 
their  special  and  personal  needs.  If  we  had  the  power  of  limning 
our  spiritual  states  as  true  Christians,  we  should  give  forth,  in  some 
feeble  form,  the  Christ  that  seems  to  us  most  joyful,  most  beautiful, 
most  divine ;  the  Christ  that  dwells  with  us  in  darkness;  the  Christ 
that  triumphs  with  us  in  light;  the  Christ  with  whom  we  weep; 
the  Christ  who  bends  over  us  to  forgive;  the  Christ  who  in  the 
midst  of  our  vulgar  earthly  enjoyments  is  inspiring  evermore  holy 
aspirations  and  desires  and  longings;  the  Christ  who  helps  our 
weakness ;  the  Christ  who  sets  our  dislocated  joints  so  that  our  feet 
shall  walk,  yea,  run,  in  the  royal  way ;  the  Christ  who  begins  to 
come  home  to  us  so  that  he  abides  in  our  thoughts  and  imagina- 
tions, and  is  with  us  in  our  prayer  and  converse. 

If  men  should  consort  with  Christ,  how  would  the  Christ  of 
every  one  of  them  have  much  of  that  one's  own  thoughts  and 
features  and  personality !  How  would  there  be  in  every  one  a  com- 
mon element  of  joy  and  hope  and  victory  !  How  would  there  be  a 
feeling  of  victory  derived  largely  from  the  personality  of  one  Avho 
had  thus  had  Christ  formed  in  him,  taking  something  of  the  mold 
of  one's  own  self;  bearing,  as  we  may  hope,  something  of  ourselves 
in  such  a  way  tliat  when  we  rise  to  glory  we  shall  recognize  Christ 
by  seeing  in  him  something  that  is  in  us,  so  that  our  identity  and 
his  identity  shall  be  the  same. 

To  many  this  thought  of  Christ  comes  early.  To  many  it  comes 
almost  in  the  beginning.  To  many,  let  us  hope,  who  are  happily 
organized  or  happily  taught,  it  comes  with  the  first  dawning  of  the 
understanding.  Alas  !  that  so  much  of  our  life  should  be  spent  iu 
getting  rid  of  misteaching;  in  untwisting  bad  habits  ;  in  throwing 
out  formations  that  had  better  not  have  been  allowed  to  come  in 
at  all. 

How  blessed  are  they  who,  not  educated  in  scholastic  distinc- 
tions, are  from  the  morning  of  their  life  taught  to  hold  on  to  Christ 


474  THE  SIGNIFICANCE  AND 

as  their  dearest,  sweetest  Friend  and  Head,  so  that  they  grow  np 
into  him' in  all  things!  Blessed  and  fortunate  are  tbey.  The 
angels  sing  to  such. 

But  many  come  to  this  thought  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus,  later, 
not  because  they  do  not  arrive  at  a  state  of  susceptibility  to  spirit- 
ual impressions  until  later  years,  but  because  they  come  to  it 
through  very  many  struggles.  There  are  many  sins  to  be  laid  aside. 
There  are  many  evil  habits  to  be  overcome.  There  are  many  fro- 
ward  dispositions  to  be  transformed.  There  is  to  be  the  subduing 
of  the  will  by  the  Divine  Spirit.  There  is  to  be  the  effectual  minis- 
tration of  providence.  There  is  to  be  brought  to  bear  the  mellow- 
ing influence  of  sorrow,  the  humbling  influence  of  misfortunes,  and 
the  influence  which  comes  from  breaking  away  from  idolatrous 
affections,  and  cleaving  to  those  things  which  draw  the  soul  God- 
ward.  The  church  ;  its  meetings;  its  ordinances;  the  winds  that 
blow;  the  clouds  that  float  in  the  heavens;  the  music  that  cheers 
the  heart;  objects  of  beauty  that  please  the  eye — all  these  things  are 
appointed  of  God  as  instruments  and  influences  to  raise  the  human 
soul  toward  the  divine.  The  affections  of  the  household,  all  right 
processes  of  social  life,  are  God's  ordinances.  The  ordinances  of 
the  sanctuary  are  not  more  sacred  or  more  effectual  than  those 
providences  of  God  in  nature  and  society  by  Avhich  he  is  perpetually 
instructing  and  molding  and  preparing  men's  minds  for  the  in- 
dwelling of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

I  profoundly  believe  that  by  the  varied  influences  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  through  instructions  and  inspirations,  and  experiences  and 
providences,  one  is  at  last  brought  into  a  state  in  which  he  can 
open  his  soul  and  see  Christ  as  a  Being  of  love  and  mercy,  and  that 
Christ  consciously  does  enter  into  their  thought,  and  form  a  sweet 
partnership  with  them.  Men  look  with  unbelieving  eyes  upon  any 
such  possibility ;  but  is  there  not  an  hour  in  which  two  noble  souls 
that  hav(3'been  coming  up  side  by  side  through  life  find  their  feel- 
ings changed  toward  each  other  ?  Is  there  not  an  hour  in  which, 
by  some  strange  providence  one  word  unlocks  them  each  to  the 
other,  and  again  locks  them  each  in  the  other  ?  Is  there  not  a 
look  that  is  a  revelation  ?  Is  there  not  a  silence  that  is  an  inspira- 
tion? And  from  that  hour  and  moment  do  not  their  lives  inspire 
each  other  all  the  way  onward  to  the  gate  of  heaven  ?  And  is  it 
strange  that  there  should  be  an  hour  in  which  the  greater  friend- 
ship and  the  greater  love  of  God  should  be  disclosed  to  us  ?  If  we 
are  sons  of  Xjrod  ;  if  we  are  away  from  home,  and  at  school ;  if  we 
are  being  prepared  for  the  glorious  vacation  of  death  ;  and  the  glo- 
rious upmounting  through  it  to  our  Father's  house  in  heaven,  is  it 


EFFECT  OF  CHBI8T8  BIETH.  475 

strange  that  there  comes  an  hour  in  which  God  meets  the  sou],  and 
the  soul  recognizes  its  Saviour,  and  rejoices  in  him  ?  Is  it  strange, 
when  we  see  the  analogies  and  parallels  of  this  experience  among 
men,  that  we  recognize  Avith  inexpressible  delight  the  greater  power 
and  grandeur  and  nobleness  of  divine  love  ? 

At  last,  when  men  come  to  this  Saviour  that  is  personal  to 
them,  they  come  to  the  condition  which  the  apostles  were  in  after 
the  Pentecost.  It  is  no  longer  the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament — 
that  is,  of  the  letter;  it  is  no  longer  the  Christ  of  the  Catechism ; 
it  is  no  longer  the  Christ  of  men's  conversation ;  it  is  the  Christ 
of  our  own  souls;  it  is  the  Christ  of  our  own  experiences  ;  it  is  that 
which  we  feel  to  be  our  need  supplied  by  our  God. 

Blessed  are  they  of  whom  it  may  be  said,  "Their  Christ  at  last 
is  born,  and  is  formed  in  them."  Blessed  are  you  when  men, 
addressing  you,  can  say,  "  To  you  a  Saviour  is  born  this  day."  For 
men  have  traveled  their  two  score  years,  yea  their  three  score  years, 
often,  before  the  Spirit  of  Christ  to  their  knowledge  is  really  born 
in  them,  or  is  being  born  in  them,  the  hope  of  glory. 

Now  let  me  ask  you,  have  you  ever  been  made  to  feel  the  need 
of  a  divine  Saviour  ?  Have  your  aspirations  been  so  low  that 
nature  could  do  for  you  all  that  you  Avanted  ?  Has  your  sense  of 
character  been  so  limited  that  you  have  felt  no  need  of  supernatural 
help  ?  Has  there  been  no  immortality  beckoning  you  from  the  fair 
horizon  ?  Or,  have  all  your  hopes  been  within  the  bounds  of  the 
horizon  ?  Is  Christ  to  you  anything  but  a  great  and  disagreeable 
duty  whom  you  ought  to  know,  and  whom  you  ought  to  serve  ? 
Have  you  any  life,  any  hope,  any  cheer  in  him  ?  You  bear  his 
name.  Christian  brethren,  to  what  purpose  ?  What  i^  he  to  you  ? 
Are  you  merely  followers  of  morality  ?  Are  you  merely  ethical  dis- 
ciples ?  Are  you  simply  versed  in  theological  questions  ?  Or,  are 
you  really  a  believer  in  Christ's  divinity  ?  Are  you  a  sincere  fol- 
lower of  him  ?  Are  you  willing  to  die  for  him  ?  Are  you  willing 
to  live  for  him  ?  Is  Christ  to  you  a  personal  Friend  ?  Is  he  a  forgiv- 
ing Saviour?  Is  he  One  from  whom  you  receive  an  inspiration 
that  lifts  you  above  the  flesh  and  above  the  world  into  true  and 
spiritual  commerce  with  invisit)le  things  and  the  invisible  world  ? 
Is  he  One  who  makes  you  feel  that  you  are  a  son  of  God,  and  an 
heir  of  eternal  glory?  Have  you  had  that  experience  which 
quenches  doubt  ?  Have  you  had  that  experience  which  burns  up 
infidelity  in  the  soul  ?  Has  Christ  been  with  you  ?  Has  God  shar- 
ken  your  soul  with  divine  fervor  and  divine  power?  Or,  are  you 
simply  on  the  way  toward  your  Christ  ?  Are  you  yet  struggling 
with  thoughts  and  feehngs? 


476"  THE  SIONIFIGANGH  AND 

There  is  for  every  one  a  Christ  that  shall  bring  peace.  There 
is  a  Christ  of  love  that  brings  rest.  There  is  a  Christ  that  brings 
victory  to  the  soul.  How  rich  are  they  who  can  look  upon  riches, 
and  say,  "  I  am  richer  than  they  are"!  How  joyful  are  they  who 
can  look  upon  joys,  and  say,  "My  joys  are  a  whole  octave  higher 
than  those  "  !  How  blessed  are  they  who  can  look  upon  misfor- 
tunes, and  say,  "  I  am  set  free  from  your  power  "  !  How  blessed 
are  they  Avho  can  say  to  everything  in  this  world,  "  I  am  glad  to 
have  you  go  with  me  as  far  as  you  can  help  me  upward ;  but 
further  than  that  I  can  get  along  without  you !  I  have  food,  and 
raiment,  and  inspiration,  and  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory, 
and  these  are  enough  to  caiTy  me  through  " ! 

Is  the  Christ  that  I  have  described  the  Christ  of  your  house- 
hold ?  Is  this  the  Christ  whom  your  children  see  that  you  lovo  ^ 
Are  there  not  those  present  who  have  been  taught  that  religion 
was  gloomy  and  sad-faced  ?  Are  there  not  those  here  who  have 
hoped  yet  one  day  to  be  religious,  because  they  thought  it  was 
hard  to  die  without  insurance  ?  Are  there  not  those  who,  rather 
than  die  and  run  a  risk,  are  willing  to  be  religious  ?  Are  there 
not  those  who  look  upon  Christ's  service  as  literally  a  yoke  and  a 
burden,  forgetting  that  Christ  has  declared  that  his  yoke  is  easy, 
and  that  his  burden  is  light  ?  Are  there  not  those  who  have  no 
sense  of  the  glorified  Christ  ?  Is  your  Christ  dead  in  the  letter  and 
buried  in  the  Scripture?  I  call  to  you,  and  say.  There  is  a  love  of 
God,  expressed  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  Avaits  for  you,  to 
help  your  growth,  and  give  inspiration  to  all  that  is  noble  in  you, 
that  it  may  dominate,  and  pei'fectly  conquer  all  that  which  is 
carnal  and  base.  ■  The  nobler  pui^poses  of  this  life  will  be  better  ac- 
complished through  the  help  of  God  than  through  any  other  help; 
and  tliere  is  a  Christ  that  waits  at  the  door  of  every  soul,  and 
knocks,  saying,  "I  knock;  open  unto  me."  You  do  not  have  to 
go  far  to  find  sweet  experiences.  Beyond  and  above  earthly  things 
is  a  love  which  brings  rest  and  peace — peace  in  life,  and  peace  in 
death ;  and  it  brings  joy  and  victory  in  heaven. 

Eemcmber  your  father's  God,  remember  your  mother's  God,  re- 
member the  God  of  the  Christian,  ye  wanderers ;  ye  that  are  un- 
settled from  your  faith;  ye  that  are  reaping  handfiils  and  not 
bosomfuls  of  joy  from  natural  fields,  and  are  going  further  and 
further  away  from  a  personal  reliance  upon  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 
Remember,  I  beseech  of  you,  all  those  early  scenes  and  early  hours 
and  early  associations  which  so  tended  to  bring  you  back  to  your 
father's  God  and  to  the  hope  of  your  childhood. 

Are  there  not  tliose  who  have   almost  given  up  their  Bible  ? 


EFFECT  OF  CHRIST S  BIBTU.  477 

Are  there  not  many  to  whom  every  street  in  the  city  is  more  fa- 
miliar than  the  ways  of  this  old  Book,  this  old  Eden,  where  grow 
every  tree,  and  every  fruit,  and  every  flower  of  sweet  and  pure  de- 
light ?  Have  you  forsaken  your  father's  counsel  ?  Have  you 
forgotten  your  mother's  comfort  ?  I  call  upon  those  who 
have  long  been  seeking  to  turn  again  to  this  old  Book,  to  ask 
God  who  in?,pired  that  to  inspire  them,  that  they  may  under- 
stand its  sacred  truths,  and  that,  catching  from  the  letter  the 
outlines  of  these  truths,  they  may  become  alive  inwardly ;  and 
that  Christ  may  come  to  them,  not  interpreted  through  the  mere 
text,  but  interpreted  through  the  Spirit  of  God.  And  may  that 
Divine  Spirit  Avhicii  has  never  forsaken  the  earthly  church  of  God, 
that  Spirit  which  still  keeps  the  truth  alive  in  the  earth,  draw  nea,r 
to  every  one  of  j^ou. 

If  there  be  those  among  you  who  have  sought  Christ ;  who 
through  fear  or  remorse  have  called  upon  him,  or  through  trust 
and  love  have  leaned  upon  him;  or  if  there  be  those  who  have  re- 
jected Christ,  and  would  have  none  of  him,  I  ask  not  that  you  take 
the  dogmas  of  the  Church ;  I  ask  not  that  you  subscribe  to  auy 
particular  form  of  belief  or  confession  of  faith  ;  but  I  beseech  of 
yon  to  help  yourselves  by  taking  hold  of  that  manifestation  of  God 
in  Christ  Jesus  which  you  need  to  cleanse  3-ou,  and  strengthen 
you,  and  inspire  you,  and  save  you. 

For,  wlien  at  last  the  hour  shall  come — as  certainly  it  will  to  us 
all — in  which  that  least  obvious  but  greatest  of  conquerors,  Death, 
draws  near  to  us,  then  all  those  things  for  which  we  have  spent  our 
lives  will  be  powerless.  In  the  hour  of  death  our  money  will  be 
forgotten.  Pain  will  quench  avarice.  All  honors  and  all  plea:- 
ures  will  fly  away,  and  will  scarcely  abide  as  the  figments  of 
an  evanishing  memory.  In  that  hour  of  departing,  when  heart 
and  fle^h  fail,  then  it  is  that  that  which  to  men  is  like  an  imagina- 
tion, that  that  invisible,  impalpable  hope  whieli  tlie  hand  cannot 
handle  nor  the  eye  see,  but  which  dwells  as  a  spirit  in  the  soul, 
begins,  as  all  other  things  grow  weak,  to  gather  to  itself  ommpoteut 
power.  And  as  no  thing  on  earth  can  cany  you  one  single  step 
into  the  darkness,  nor  bridge  for  you  the  mighty  abyss,  this  is  that 
power  which,  as  it  were,  throws  the  brightest  rainbow  of  life  aci'oss 
this  world  to  tlie  other,  and  oji  which  your  footstei)s  are  planted  ; 
and  you  rise  from  glory  to  glory,  until  you  stand  in  Zion  and  before 
God,  and  are  children  of  blessedness. 

I  call  upon  you,  then,  on  this  Sabbath  day,  to  review  your 
thought  of  Christ,  and  to  review  your  condition  in  reference  to 
him.      Accept   this   Ijlessed   Saviour   as    your   inward    life>  your 


478  TEE  SIGNIFICANCE  AND 

strcngtli,  your  joy.  Live  Avith  him.  Live  in  liim.  Let  him  live 
in  yon.  ,  Die  by  his  power,  and  rise  by  his  power,  and  be  with  him 
forever  in  glory. 

And  when  that  day  shall  come  which  cannot  be  long  kept  from 
any  of  us,  may  I  see  you  in  heaven.  May  you  behold  me  there. 
And  may  these  imperfect  friendships,  and  this  staggering  walk  of 
life  be  zo  gloriously  transformed  that  then  we  shall  behold  each 
other  ripened  in  beauty  and  in  perfect  symmetry,  where  every  tone 
shall  be  as  a  note  of  music,  and  every  joy  shall  have  for  its  expres- 
fcion  the  hio-hest  anthems  of  the  blessed. 


PRAYER   BEFORE   THE   SERMOK. 

We  draw  near  to  thee,  our  Father,  to  thank  thee  for  the  mere  ies  we  have 
received  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord— for  the  redemption  of  his  blood ; 
for  the  inspiration  of  his  word;  for  the  example  of  his  life;  for  all  the 
revelation  of  thyself  which  he  hath  brought  forth,  living,  or  dyinj?,  or  living 
again.  If  v.'e  have  knowledge  of  thee  so  that  thou  art  near  and  dear  to  us, 
we  have  received  that  knowledge  through  Jesus,  who  hath  taught  us  what 
divine  life  is,  and  from  whom  we  have  learned  what  is  divine  mercy  and 
pity.  We  have  beheld  his  life,  and  known  that  it  interpreted  thine.  His 
heart  hath  taught  us,  better  than  words,  what  is  the  divine  heart.  And  new 
we  come  unto  God  through  him.  We  behold  God  in  him.  We  rejoice  in  him 
as  our  Saviour.  Standing  for  the  iucompreheusible  and  the  invisible,  and 
bringing  near  to  us  the  things  which  were  too  high  for  our  reach,  we  rejoice 
in  him,  and  live  by  faith  of  him.  Through  the  love  of  Christ  we  purify  our 
souls.  Dying  we  trust  in  him ;  and  we  hope  through  his  power  to  rise  again 
at  the  last  day,  and  hope  l)y  him  to  be  presented  at  the  throne  of  his  Father 
T7ithout  blemish  or  spot. 

And  now,  O  God,  what  thanks  shall  we  give  to  thee  for  thy  remembrance 
of  us,  and  for  that  sweet  influence  which  is  reached  down  to  us  from  heaven 
day  by  day ;  for  all  the  comfort  which  thou  hast  promised  and  hast  sent ;  for 
the  consolation  which  tliou  hast  ministered  unto  us  through  this  long  year, 
and  through  the  many  weary  years  of  life  during  which  thou  hast  been 
faithful  to  us?  Thy  words  have  been  Yea  and  Amen.  They  have  borne  our 
weight  when  we  have  leaned  upon  them.  They  have  been  a  staff  that  did 
not  breafe.  Thou  hast  been  our  way,  and  we  have  walked  therein.  And  it 
has  been  an  ascending  road,  growing  brighter  and  brighter,  as  leading  toward 
the  perfect  day. 

And  now,  we  desire  to  carry  our  hearts'  affections  to  thee.  We  desire  to 
love  thee  more  i)erfectly.  We  desire  that  thy  love  may  work  in  us  all  purity 
and  nobility.  We  desire  to  follow  thee,  and,  loving  thee,  to  walk  in  thy 
Spirit.  We  desire  to  practice  the  lesson  of  self-denial  which  thou  hast 
taught  us.  We  rejoice  when  joy  is  the  gift  of  God,  and  when  its  light  cheers 
£vnd  comforts.  We  desire  to  take  all  that  is  vv^ithin  us  of  reason,  of  taste, 
of  affection,  our  whole  moral  being,  and  to  consecrate  it  to  thy  service  and 
to  the  welfai'c  of  men.  Accept  our  consecration.  Teach  us  from  day  to  day 
how  more  ijorfectly  to  find  thee.  Be  thou,  O  Lord,  in  us,  and  dwell  in  us 
imLil  every  faculty,  every  thought,  every  germ  of  thought,  every  part  of 


EFFECT  OF  CUIilSrS  BIBTn.  479 

our  nature,  shall  be  sanctified,  so  that  Christ  shall  be  formed  in  us ;  so  that 
Jl'Sus  shall  be  born  in  us  the  hope  of  glory.  And  we  pray,  O  Lord  our  God, 
that  thou  wilt  make  the  knowledge  of  his  blessed  name  more  and  more 
sweet  to  the  ears  of  those  who  do  not  now  know  him. 

Grant,  if  there  be  any  who  are  burdened  with  a  sense  of  their  inflrmity 
and  of  their  sinfulness,  that  they  may  behold  in  Jesus  the  Pardoner— the 
Lamb  of  God  that  takes  away  the  sin  of  the  world.  If  there  be  those  who 
are  walking  in  darkness  and  without  light,  arise  upon  their  vision,  O  thou 
Prince  of  ISalvation,  and  lead  them  in  the  royal  way.  If  there  be  any  who 
have  gone  away  from  their  tirst  lovo,  who  have  long  ago  ceased  to  have  the 
experience  of  faith  and  the  blessedness  of  joy  in  Christ,  restore  them,  thou 
Shepherd.  Bring  them  again  into  the  fold,  and  into  the  sweet  experience  of 
thy  love. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  bless,  to-night,  those  who  are  gathered  together 
here.  May  all  the  sacred  associations  of  this  hour  be  full  of  blessedness  to 
every  one  of  our  souls.  Comfort  those  who  need  consolation.  Cheer  those 
who  are  in  darkness.  Encourage  those  who  are  desponding.  Forgive  those 
who  are  filled  with  sorrow  for  their  sins.  Succor  those  whose  remorse 
drives  them  toward  the  night,  and  who  are  in  despair.  O  Lord,  be  thou  a 
Saviour ;  and  to-night,  in  the  midst  of  this  congregation,  manifest  thy  power 
of  saving  men  from  all  evil  in  thought  or  in  feeling,  and  of  inspiring  in 
them  every  noble  thought,  and  every  worthy  desire,  and  every  upward  aim, 
and  every  purpose  which  thou  dost  approve. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  upon  the  aged,  who 
have  well  nigh  fulfilled  thy  will,  and  who  pause  a  little  before  they  go 
hence  to  be  no  more  on  earth.  Wilt  thou  prepare  them,  like  thy  servant  of 
old,  to  say,  from  day  to  day,  "Now,  Lord,  let  thy  servant  depart  in  peace." 

Draw  near  to  those  who  are  bearing  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day. 
May  they  see  how  better  to  fulfill  the  law  of  love  in  their  affairs;  how  to 
disohargti  all  their  duties  in  the  true  spirit  of  Christ.  And  we  pray  that  as 
their  day  is,  their  strength  may  be  also. 

Grant  that  the  young  may  grow  up  in  truth  and  purity  and  fidelity. 
May  they  become  of  a  stature  surpassing  that  of  their  fathers.  May  they 
more  and  more  l)e  filled  with  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

We  pray  that  thou  wilt  grant  thy  blessing  to  rest  on  all  the  churches  of 
evei'y  name.  Be  with  all  thy  servants  who  are  making  known  the  truth  as 
it  is  in  Jesus.  Grant,  we  pray  thee,  that  evil  and  error  may  be  purged  away ; 
that  men  may  see  the  brotherhood  that  is  in  man  more  and  more  perfc^ctly, 
and  that  growing  sympathy  may  draw  together  those  who  have  been  widely 
sepai'ated.  We  pray  that  thy  people  may  become  one  in  sympathy.  May 
all  those  who  love  thee  love  one  another,  and  have  the  unity  of  the  Spirit. 
May  thy  kingdom  come  in  all  the  earth,  and  thy  will  be  done  throughout 
the  world,  as  it  is  in  heaven. 

And  to  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Spirit,  shall  be  the  praise,  forever 
more.    Amen. 


PRAYER  AFTER  THE  SERMON. 

Our  Father,  we  thank  thee  for  all  that  thou  hast  thought  and  done  for 
niir  sinful  race.  We  cannot  probe  nor  imderstand  the  mysteries  of  Christ, 
nor  of  human  life,  nor  of  providence.  We  only  kitow  our  need.  We  are  as 
children  cast  out  upon  the  midnight  ocean,  who  know  neither'  the  depths, 
nor  tlie  wimls,  nor  the  storms;  but  who  know  that  they  are  out  on  the 
peiHous  sea.    And  we  cry  out.    Tempest-tossed  and  not  comforted,  at  timea 


480  EFFECT  OF  CHRIST'S  BIRTH. 

all  that  is  in  lis  cries  out  for  God.  "We  eat,  and  are  biin^y  again.  We 
drink,  and  are  thirsty  again.  We  laugh,  and  then  forget  to  laugh.  Sadness 
is  arovind  about  us  and  within  us,  and  alternates  uutil  thou,  O  blesseel 
Saviour,  dost  take  up  thine  abode  in  the  soul.  Those  who  have  thee  for  a 
constant  guest  have  joy  and  peace  forever. 

Now,  we  pray  thee,  draw  near  to  all  those  who  need  thee.  Teach  those 
who,  needing  thee,  do  not  know  it.  Grant,  we  beseech  of  thee,  that  those 
who  are  parching  for  thee  may  find  thee.  Help  them.  Speak  comf oi  tably 
to  them.  May  they  not  wait  till  they  have  something  to  bring  to  Christ 
besides  their  wretchedness  and  their  unhappiness.  May  they  go  to  him  as 
they  would  go  to  their  physician  for  the  healing  of  their  body.  We  beseech 
of  thee  that  there  may  be  many  who  shall  break  through  their  sins,  and 
remove  the  distance  which  intervenes  between  them  and  Chi'ist.  May  ther(:; 
1)6  some  who  to-night  shall  go  out  into  the  light  and  liberty  of  the  sons  of 
God,  and  whose  hearts  from  this  time  forth  shall  be  able  to  cry  out,  Abba, 
Father. 

Be  with  us  while  we  live.  Mark  out  for  us  the  path  which  we  are  to 
walk.  Give  us  willing  feet  and  submissive  hearts  when  the  time  shall  come 
that  heaven  wants  us,  and  sends  for  us.  And  may  we  not  misunderstand 
death  nor  its  beckonings,  but  rejoice  in  it  as  the  messenger  of  God  come  to 
rail  us  home— for  we  are  homesick.  And  grant,  at  last,  that  as  children 
brought  home,  O  Father,  we  may  see  thee  as  thou  art,  and  be  like  unto  thee. 

And  to  thy  name  shall  be  all  the  praise  and  the  glory,  forever  aiid  over. 
Amen. 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  01166  2261 


DATE  DUE 

HIGHSMII 

m  #45115 

1 

